


Sacrifice

by nightrixfangirls



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2018-12-23 09:52:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11987367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightrixfangirls/pseuds/nightrixfangirls
Summary: Dramatis Personae: An uppity noble. A quasi-military organization and its major players. A threat. A stranger comes home. A sacrifice.(Man, do I suck at summaries.)





	1. 1: Prologue (I)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys :'3 Okay so I'm like 3 minutes old on AO3, and this is my first (and probably only) fic that has crawled out of the deep pit of my Recycle Bin and Regrets folder. Not that I'm expecting a lot of you guys to read this, cause idk, Bleach ended quite some time ago, not satisfactorily, and I'm new, and everybody skips the intro anyway. 
> 
> But, if you're reading this, the timeframe needs explaining here. Like, I know, its silly its just a fic and I'm not really all that great, but I put in a lot of thought about this to the point where it became a literal portable universe in my head. So hear me out, okay: the events here happen in the small amount of time between Ichigo's powers returning to him and the Yhwach/Juha Bach (take your pick, both make him sound like the shady motherf- he is) invasion, colloquially known as The Arc where Common Sense up and left Kubo in the middle of the night. 
> 
> Its a terribly small time frame, I know. Too small for anything important, let alone life-changing to happen.
> 
> But that's what happens in this story. One of the characters' life changes. 
> 
> Um, there's an OC so, Idk, I mean, but its good I swear so.  
> Please read? 
> 
> I swear I'm not gonna update it after 3 chapters or so if I don't get positive responses so that's cool.  
> *crickets chirping* *awkward silence*

 

“You can’t do this!” he thundered at the Captain Commander’s retreating form, “This is cruel, Yama-ji! Even for you!” 

Nothing.

Ichigo’s words hung, sinking heavily into the air of the huge, empty hall. The rest of the captains had left a while ago, and the heavy hall doors had been closed to provide Ichigo with the audience he had absolutely demanded once he was relayed the Captain Commander’s decision. He had been at the Fourth Division Barracks, under Unohana-taicho’s direct supervision, as were Sado, Ishida and Orihime, when the hell butterfly had come to Kotetsu-fukutaicho. They had spent a month being patched up, or in Ichigo’s and Sado’s case, being brought back from the dead. 3 taicho had been teetering on the brink of life and death for a while, and it had taken the combined effort of Kotetsu-fukutaicho and the third and fourth seats working around the clock to simply stabilize them. Renji, Rukia, Ikkaku- he had no idea where they were. Everytime he had asked Unohana-taicho, she’d smiled in that chilling, creepy, motherly way and told him sweetly that they had been undergoing treatment elsewhere. 

Yeah but where? He wanted to ask. She never gave him the opportunity. 

He had been here a month, and seeing how he had taken the brunt of the force in that rash, heedless manner of his, he could see why she stressed on him being confined to his quarters till he got better. But he wanted to see his friends. He wanted to know if they were alright. 

Unohana-taicho wasn’t known for her bedside manners. She was compassionate, certainly, but compassion didn’t become her. No matter how many people she had fooled. Ichigo wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, and Rukia had always taken great pleasure in reminding him of the fact, a recollection that stung hard now. But he knew that her calmness was a façade. Her face had more paint on it than Mayuri’s, metaphorically speaking of course since Mayuri had somehow been able to achieve the dubious honor of being the nightmare of every mime and pharaoh, in addition to that of every sentient life-form in the real world. All things considered, he’d rather stab himself in the foot with Zangetsu than be on Retsu Unohana’s bad side. So he had kept quiet, and bided his time. 

Right now, of course, time was running out. 

His desperate plea was rewarded with billowing white robes, as the old man mountain walked away in silence, his figure retreating into a smaller and smaller white dot. 

_I ran here,_ Ichigo thought, looking down at the polished pine floor, _as fast as I could, the moment they got the missive;_ , a pulse point jumped in his neck as he neared an incandescence he dreaded, _I can’t stand without hacking up blood, I can’t breathe without feeling like someone’s hammering nails into my sides. I’m barely being held together with kido and bandages, there’s a hole in my abdomen the size of Grimmjow’s hollow hole, I don’t know if my friends will even recover.  
And you won’t even grace me enough to listen to what I have to say?_

Ichigo’s skin crawled with rage. _You will listen._

A flash of his feet, air whooshing past him, and a second later he shunpo-ed right between Yamamoto and the huge arching doors to the courtyard. _I will make you listen._

The act had been equal parts brave, reckless and miscalculated. Yamamoto Shigekuni Genryuusai, the strongest, oldest Shinigami in history, towered above him; the frown crossing his otherwise stoic features an implicit remark on yet another of the ryoka boy’s transgressions. Whatever breath Ichigo had was knocked right out of him. He’d drawn on his last reserves of reiatsu for the shunpo, and a throbbing pain shot up his spine as he gnashed his teeth together and bore the pain without a yelp. From this close, Ichigo could feel the older Shinigami’s immense reiatsu, suppressed for others’ sake, yet thrumming like a warhead counting down to detonation. It was so ancient, thick and heavy Ichigo knew he’d crumble to his knees if Yamamoto allowed any minor fluctuations to occur. He could already feel the stitches on his left side coming apart, responding to his shunpo and the pressure exerted by the reiatsu, and without any high-level healing kido nearby he didn’t want to risk his chances. 

“Don’t do this” he had a few seconds before his knees gave in, and he stared the Captain Commander straight in the eye “The Gotei is better than this. We don’t treat our enemies like animals and herd them up for butchering.” 

Yamamoto kept looking down at him, and Ichigo felt a wave of nausea coming up. He forcibly held it down.  


“Or worse, entertainment.” 

Something flashed in Yamamoto’s eyes. Before Ichigo could feel satisfied of getting a rise out of the old man, his voice rumbled out of the thousand year old body, imperious and commanding. Ringing of finality.  


“She is dangerous.”  


“But she’s not a threat!” This goddamn nausea came back in rolls, getting stronger. His knees were buckling already, vision blurring ridiculously fast at the edges “She SAVED them! If she hadn’t stepped in between Toshiro and that creature-“  


“Today is for determining who, or what she is.” Yamamoto’s voice rang out, clear and final from the stifling darkness that crept into Ichigo’s vision. “You are greatly valued by the Gotei 13, Kurosaki Ichigo. We prize your contributions towards Seireitei. But we ask that you stay out of this, if you don’t see it fit to be one of the challengers today. You are unwell. We would wish that you recover.”  


With that, and a curt nod to one of the First Division attendants who had shunpo-ed into existence right then, Yamamoto passed him by as his vision blacked out and he fell into deep, dark waters.


	2. 2: Prologue (II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey wow I mean 19 people read this (13 are me from fake accounts with a funny hat and goggles, but anyway). Whoever did, thanks a lot you guys. I can't even get myself to read what I've written, so kudos to your perseverance :'D Big shoutout to the 2 people who commented, and upon receiving the notification for which I proceeded to straight up snort the water I was drinking right out of my nose (seriously guys, that was really kind of you, thank you).
> 
> These are prologues cause the real thing's about to come. Hope you like it!

“We can’t do this” Rangiku sighed, uncharacteristically shifting in her place almost like she was nervous.

That got to Hisagi. Rangiku-san was many things: loud, flirty, ridiculously delectable in that standard-issue shihakusho, skilled at shunpo, and out of his league. What she was not, however, was nervous.  
He cast his eyes downwards, looking at their feet, not wanting to direct his question at anybody in particular “Why?”

“Oh come on” Ikkaku muttered, taking another swig of the sake bottle before Rangiku snatched it away from him and drained it “All of us against one person? It’s hardly fair.”

“It won’t be all of us at once though” Hisagi turned to Kira, who looked paler and more lifeless than usual, if such a thing could be possible. Izuru Kira, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. In his quiet voice, his hesitant steps and his constant looking-away, Hisagi could see his friend breaking minutely every day. Watching a man fall apart so neatly, so quietly, over decades- it was art. It was beautiful, horrifying. Hisagi could go mad if he had let himself.

Hisagi had tried, though. All of them had tried to reach out to Kira, even with the Vizards resuming their positions. They had boisterously invited him over to casual sake-fueled, after-hour gatherings. They had held him at arm’s length, looked into his tundra eyes, asked him what was going on. If everything was okay. They had, failing any acknowledgement of his immense grief on his part, enfolded him to their hearts, hoping their beating hearts would convey what words couldn’t: _Kira, come back. Ichimaru and Tōsen are- they’re dead, Kira. You- you’re still alive. Kira, stay._

Everytime they tried to clutch him, their hands grasped nothing but air, nothing but the brief rustle of Kira’s shihakusho as it left silent, empty rooms. _Every day since Ichimaru and Tōsen had-_

Deep breath.

 _Not now, Shuuhei,_ he told himself. _There will be plenty of time later. Not now._

Ikkaku shrugged “Still doesn’t make it fair.”

“Since when are you about fairness?” Yumichika said, drily “All you care for is someone to give you a good fight, and some property damage.”

“Oi, you better shut up or reworking your face’s next on that list.” Ikkaku scowled.

“Seriously guys” Kira huffed, some color breathed into him by this squabble, trying to end the bickering “This is neither the time nor the place.”

“I don’t know”, Rangiku cut in with a frown, talking more to herself than to anyone else, not paying much attention to the huddle “But taicho didn’t look very excited when I intercepted the jigoku-chou.”  
“It’s natural, I guess.” Hisagi said, Yumichika and Kira nodding understandingly “He would have been way worse off if she hadn’t intercepted the Cero.”

“I heard we’ll be constituted into groups of 4, us fukutaicho” Hinamori had been avoiding eye-contact all this while, but now she looked up “We need to be in groups to deal with…it”

Yumichika snorted.  
“I don’t see why.”

“Are you kidding, Ayasegawa-san?” Kira turned to him, his cool evaporating faster and faster. Nothing could get Kira riled up more than those who threw caution to the wind, especially at times like these. “Do the words ‘Maggots’ Nest’ mean nothing to you?”

The company fell silent. Hinamori looked like she wanted to cry, or kill someone. Hisagi didn’t even want to know which. Even the usually-bloodthirsty Ikkaku looked away.

Yumichika looked uncomfortable “Yes, they do.”

 _“And?”_ Kira asked, testily.

“I know it’s a dangerous situation.” He confessed slowly, looking away “But wouldn’t it be better if we approached her individually, instead of moving in clumsily as a group? She’d have maneuverability; we’d be stuck in our positions.”

“The Eleventh doesn’t want to compromise on going solo, that’s true” the deep voice cut into what Kira was going to say, and Hinamori jumped a little. Renji had stepped into their little huddle, with a veritable storm cloud on his face. The top half of his chest was wrapped in bandages, and he hadn’t bothered fixing his kosode, which said a lot.  
Renji had had almost a pathological fear of improper attire and tardiness instilled into him by his taicho, and he couldn’t help but fuss over his shihakusho until it was absolutely “proper”, due to years and years of Kuchiki-taicho’s scathing remarks. Everything else was the same: the red hair gathered in a top knot like wildfire on a leash, the tattoos, the bandanna. But Hisagi was alarmed to note that even his broad shoulders looked slumped and defeated.

“But this is supposed to be a trial, or something.” Renji continued, giving Yumichika a little nudge for him to lighten up “The objective is to test her, so it’s got to be a mixture of offense and defense. Or at least that’s what my taicho said. Though he didn’t look as sorted at all.”

Rangiku almost took a step back “What? Kuchiki-taicho looked uncomfortable?”

“I said it.” Renji scratched the back of his head, self-consciously. “When Tenth-seat intercepted the jigaku-chou and relayed the message, I was delivering paperwork to taicho.”  
He looked around, and dropped his voice to a strangled whisper “Truth be told, I think taicho has been restless since the day it occurred. He is more irritable than usual, and it’s got nothing to do with my performance or anything, cause I’ve been churning out paperwork like a goddamn possessed oni all this time as he recuperated in Kuchiki Manor.”

Kira nodded, while Yumichika and Ikkaku exchanged glances. Despite being blasted to inches within his life, Renji had taken to pretty much running the Division himself in absence of his taicho. In a man such as him, who never made his dislike for paperwork a secret and would choose being roasted over a slow spit over having to ratify daily reports, much less doing it with a dislocated shoulder and a hole in his chest, this was commendable. Loyal, even.

Everybody had known, from the very start, that the former Kenpachi-underling and the other Kuchiki had had a somewhat strangled history that neither consciously spoke about. Instead, it used to just…lie between them like a dead man with open eyes whenever they spoke, even cursorily, before the events concerning Rukia’s execution happened. A cold space was opened up, nothing grew between the two- flowers, friendship. What was also obvious was the stubborn, single-minded, monomaniacal intensity with which this one Abarai would train, like a wild animal, pushing himself again and again to his limits to get his Bankai, his eyes set on surpassing Kuchiki-taicho ever since he had been promoted to fukutaicho in the Sixth.

And now, executions and treacheries and murders later, here they were. Here Renji was, fussing over his taicho and his Division, all animosity thrown to the wind.

“What did he say?” Hinamori prompted.

“He didn’t…say, so much as…look.” Renji sighed, frustrated. Kuchiki wasn’t the easiest person to get a read on. “When Tenth-seat told him about it, for a second he seemed…taken off guard. And then he seemed _mad.”_

“Was he more difficult than usual?” Kira asked.

“No, not really. He just slipped into that ice mask really quick. But he’s not convinced. I can tell.” Renji admitted.

“Well, he was the only taicho who hadn’t blacked out by the end” Ikkaku conjectured, while rubbing the back of his bald head- a sign that Hisagi had known to interpret over the years as nervous energy accumulating “He’s seen some shit.”

“If he has, he won’t say.” Renji huffed “I’ve tried everything. Getting him to talk beyond grilling me for paperwork and kido is like pulling a tooth out. Y’know how it is.”

Hisagi sighed, and looked around. Others in the melee didn’t look as sorted with this sudden decision as well. There stood Komamura-taicho, surrounded by his Division members, talking to Iba-fukutaicho, nodding his great head while Iba-san excitedly exclaimed at something. But his expression was drawn, cautious. Divisions Eight and Thirteen had loosely gathered into a huge group, whispering while Kyouraku-taicho and Ukitake-taicho exchanged what seemed to be grave sentiments. Even Kiyone-san and Sentaro-san looked more solemn, less obsessed with getting Ukitake-taicho’s tea, or foot massage, or whatever. Shinigami littered the area as far as the eye could see, in groups of threes and fours, murmuring and speculating about what was going to happen today. More and more black shihakushos were filing in. Muguruma-taicho was walking around, or more like kicking the ground, followed by Kuna. For a change, Kuna wasn’t jumping around, getting in his way or teasing him. It almost made Hisagi sad. He turned his head to see Ohtoribashi-taicho, Hirako-taicho and Sarugaki-san huddled, way at the back of the gathering, their expressions tight and controlled. That’s weird, Hisagi thought, beginning to become more and more uncomfortable by the minute. The Vizards were incredibly boisterous people to begin with, and also immensely dependable. If they were shifting in such a situation, something was very, very off with this.

He kept looking: The Eleventh Division being as rambunctious as usual, Soi-Fon taicho chastising Omaeda-fukutaicho doubly hard (understandable really, since she wasn’t usually very accommodating vis-à-vis her temper, Omaeda was a bumbling sloth most of the time, and the “ceremony” today was going to involve her), the Sixth Division in form, neat and orderly behind Kuchiki-taicho who stood there like a wall of marble, his lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes following…something.

Hisagi followed his gaze.

Rukia Kuchiki was standing away from the crowd, away from the whispers. The breeze ruffled her hair at the collars of her shihakusho. She stood with her back to Hisagi, but Hisagi knew what she was looking at so intently. So fixedly like a mark on a Hollow.

Like snow in Seireitei.

Like her dead sister’s picture.

* * *

* * *

 

Rukia was gazing up at the massive structure. Her eyes slid up the two high, parallel beams rising up, up, up vertically to the cloudless, blue sky, supporting a third beam laid horizontally at the top joining them. Beyond the structure, they lingered on a vertical shaft reaching up just as high topped with a single menacing Hsu Quandao blade glinting in the sunlight. The blade was tasseled with prayer ropes, and the shaft was attached securely to the ground with strong lashings and, Rukia suspected, stronger, military-grade kido.

None of it looked anywhere near impregnable. None of it looked anything other than dormant danger.

All these years later, she could still feel the terrible heat of the phoenix burning, burning her existence away as she had hung there, limp, stripped of her reiatsu, served up for execution as a traitor to Seireitei on those very beams. The air, charged with a burning metallic smell had choked and smothered her, tears overflowing her eyes and evaporating straight off her stained cheeks as the fiery flame filled her lungs, her head, and engulfed her world.

This is usually where the nightmare would stop. Ichigo would come barreling in, Renji would catch her, and Nii-sama would take Shinso to his heart and save her. Aizen’s plot had been cleared up; Nii-sama had opened up to her, if only a bit, welcoming her into the family and their strange life. She had become friends with Renji again, and the entire Karakura team, especially Ichigo, had grown to mean more to her than much did in her sad life.  
Yet, every time she’d pass Sokyoku Hill, her hand would tighten around Sode no Shirayuki’s hilt, almost like she was expecting the Hsu Quandao to come alive. She had been the only one to have escaped the Sokyoku ever since it had been instituted on this hill. Every time she looked up at it, even as she did now, she could almost feel a tingling in the blade, like it resonated with something she couldn’t hear, but suspected the blood inside her could. It ran like a mother to welcome a long lost son back home. It ran like a river inside her. She bled and bled and bled inside, and felt flames licking her feet, taking her breath away, burying her alive.

The Sokyoku wasn’t happy.

Her existence had been pledged to it, and the little nagging voice in her head told her that it was waiting to take back what belonged to it.

Rukia shut her eyes. Exhaling forcibly, she pinched the bridge of her nose, and turned around.  
They were on Sokyoku Hill, the most sacred point in all Seireitei. The solemn, craggy hill overlooked up to 50 districts in each direction. From this far away, she couldn’t make out the stench, filth and violence of the Inuzuri that she and Renji had brought themselves up in. _But,_ she closed her eyes and breathed in deep, _it’s still there. It’s in the air. Inuzuri is as real as Seireitei._

It was a breezy day, Rukia noted, clasping her kosode together tighter, making her way to where she could see Renji and the others huddled together. Ahead of her, the hill teemed with black shihakushos. All seated and unseated members, taicho and fukutaicho of the Gotei 13 had turned out today to take part in and witness a ceremony that the very records showed had never been allowed to happen in the long, long history of the Gotei. The Kido Corps had been invited as observer-only. A committee of handpicked members from Central 46 would moderate the ceremony, at the helm of which would be the Captain-Commander, representing the Gotei in the legislative body. All of it had happened fast, too fast. Faster than they had been able to recuperate from the blow they somehow survived from about a month ago.

“Kuchiki-san, are you alright?” Hisagi-fukutaicho asked her, kindly, as she came to stand by Renji’s side. Renji looked down at her too, the same question implicit in his eyes.

“I’m fine, Hisagi-fukutaicho. I just have some qualms regarding the ceremony.” She admitted.

“Ah, as do we all.” Hisagi-fukutaicho ruffled his spiky black hair and smiled, his crinkled eyes making the slashes on his face look less menacing and more…genial? Could wounds be genial? Hisagi-fukutaicho never told anybody how he got them, the three straight thin slashes that ran from right under his right eye to his chin. With that “69” tattoo on his face and the thick black tattooed line that extended horizontally from his left ear to his nose, it wasn’t easy to tell what were wounds and what weren’t.  
Hisagi-fukutaicho looked like he was dangerous, Rukia thought, and sure, he was one of the best on the field. But he also had a heart of gold, and an unbreakable work-ethic. No matter how much Muguruma-taicho griped about Shuuhei did this, and Shuuhei lost that, she was sure he knew that the man was one of the most diligent, dependable fukutaicho one could wish for.

Rangiku-san was back in high spirits again, she noted. “Aah, Rukia” she moved towards her, clasping her tight in a hug as the fabled contents of her chest that her shihakusho barely covered pressed into Rukia’s petite frame “There’s nothing to worry about. Breathe easy, darling.”

“Yeah” Renji emphasized, a slight hint of pink dusting his cheeks for the view he was getting “Let’s kick some ass, you guys.”

“Yeah!” Madarame-san affirmed, grinning at Ayasegawa-san, who grinned back, agreeing. Still in Rangiku’s death-grip, Rukia mused how sometimes it was weird to consider somebody who valued beauty and the aesthetic aspect of things as highly as Ayasegawa-san as being the fifth seat in a bloodthirsty Division like the Eleventh. Kenpachi-taicho was an absolute demon. He seemed to be fueled by nothing other than the will to wage war and surpass any power greater than him. All the members of his Division were similarly disposed. They’d follow him through hell, quite literally.  
Ayasegawa-san wasn’t an exception to this, Rukia knew. He lived for the blood and the gore as much as Madarame-san did.  
But there was something about him, some slippery, yet steadfast quality that eluded her.  
And made the handsome face with the feathered brows and the jet-black hair look like it was hiding something that could make or break a fight.

By the time Rangiku-san had let her go, and the gong had been heard, Izuru-fukutaicho had sighed, and said they’d better be prepared for anything and get over with it. Hinamori-fukutaicho had advised caution as well, though her eyes were too ambiguous for Rukia to ever understand what she really thought. Even with Aizen imprisoned, and Hirako-taicho resuming his post after the long gap, Hinamori-fukutaicho was her own little island.

Efficient, to-the-point, accurate.

Lonely, strange, sad.


	3. Prologue (III)

Initially the Central 46 had refused accessibility to Sokyoku Hill for any purpose other than execution. It was sacred to the Shinigami, and breaching its profane ground for a trial, especially for _her_ , seemed to them a terrible judgment.

_T_ _hey came around, of course. Eventually. Having a zanpakutou with a shikai command that says “Reduce all creation to ashes” works wonderfully when diplomacy fails._

Attendants from 10 divisions had been working round the clock for a fortnight in order to construct a temporary rectangular arena, surrounded by wooden bleachers rising spherically, raised on a structure of metal and reishi. It was almost as tall as the Sokyoku structure itself, and four times as wide. When the brief had reached the construction-team, he had emphasized the necessity that it be, beyond anything, strong, sturdy and able to bear taicho-class reiatsu and attacks without collapsing.

He knew she wouldn’t be prepared to do this quietly.  
And now they had obviously delivered.

He sat with his Division at his sides, the Central 46 committee right behind him, closest to the arena, in a specially barricaded section on the lowest bleacher. The huge arena opened up in front of his old eyes. The remaining 12 Divisions with their taicho, fukutaicho and seated officers sat to his far right, while the Kido Corps sat to his far left. The rest of the massive, spherical structure was dominated by the unseated Shinigami, each of whom had been invited individually to witness the trial.  
He could see Kurosaki Ichigo and his friends: the Quincy, the boy with the armored arms, and the girl that could reject causation sitting with the Thirteenth Division, beside Kuchiki Rukia. All of them seemed appropriately reconciled, obviously in pain still, yet drawn, on their edge. Even that character, Urahara Kisuke and Shihouin Yoruichi had turned up, despite being apparently “banned from Soul Society for the foreseeable future”. He wasn’t sure if his fifth seat had delivered that anonymous tip to Tessai in the real world, or if Urahara Kisuke knew more about what was going on than anybody else, as usual.

Good.  
Yamamoto wasn’t taking any chances.

“Today is an important day in the history of the Gotei 13” He stood up, silencing the murmurs. The entire arena fell into a hush as the Captain-Commander addressed the audience “As you have all been made aware of, we have, upon much deliberation with the esteemed chambers of the Central 46, decided to conduct a trial of one of the most dangerous criminals to ever rise within our ranks here at Sokyoku Hill.” Yamamoto paused for effect. The murmurs began anew. “Now, I shall call upon Soi-Fon, taicho of the Second Division, Head of the Punishment Force, the Onmitsukido, as well as Supervisor of the Special Detention Unit, to come present the facts for you.” He stopped for a beat. “Soi-Fon taicho oversees the apprehension and incarceration of domestic threats, as you are all aware of.” Soi-Fon was currently walking to the center of the arena, being trailed by a grave-looking Omaeda. “By my leave, Soi-Fon taicho. Please tell the gathering what transpired one month from this day.”

* * *

* * *

 

Soi-Fon wanted to scream.

Walking up to a deafeningly silent arena with Omaeda at her heels like a huge, fat, lost puppy wasn’t exactly her definition of a fun weekend.  
  
Walking up to said arena to explain to a thousand odd Shinigami and the shriveled old dunderheads of the Central 46 the consequences of the failure of a unit under her direct supervision sucked even more.  
  
But what sucked the most, she decided as she stalked her way to the center of the arena, was that she had to be belittled so in the presence of her esteemed Yoruichi-sama, and her underling, that bastard Kisuke.  
  
This last month, ever since the incident occurred, Soi-Fon had torn into every last bit of herself trying to justify it. Straight from ground zero to her Division, she had told Omaeda to lock the doors behind her, and had taken to the training grounds to stab, punch, throttle, break and cut down every excuse she could have ever given to herself as to why she hadn’t seen this coming. Why she had been this careless. Why she had been this negligent of her duties. The empty training grounds had echoed back her inconceivable fury, and it was hours after she had collapsed on the stone-cold floor from fatigue and her wounds that Kotetsu-fukutaicho and Omaeda had been able to dispel the auto-locking Kido on the dojo doors and get a team of healers in.  
As she waited for the Captain-Commander to finish his address, chin up, jaw set, hands firmly clasped behind her back, steadfast as a slightly annoyed statue, Soi-Fon kept breaking inside. A security breach in her Division and its units was more than negligence; it was a testament to her failure as a taicho to fulfill her duties.  
She glanced at the front-most bleacher on her left to where the dark, athletic woman sat leaning back, the picture of leisure. Her orange jacket glared like a beacon even in the sunlight, her hands were crossed at her chest, dark purple hair hanging in a sleek knot from the back of her head, lips pressed tight, eyes glinting golden at her like a cat.  
  
Looking through her. Looking for…what? Inability? Worthlessness? Weakness?  
  
She took a slow, smooth breath, turning her head back to face the Committee and the crowd.  
  
_I’m weak. Forgive me._

* * *

* * *

No matter what people thought of him, he _wasn’t_ an obnoxious mountain of fat with an eating disorder and a nose-picking habit, dammit.  
Well, maybe he was. But there also was a brain, a spine and a zanpakutou in there somewhere.  
  
Currently, of course, all those other faculties were screaming fire in his head.  
  
Omaeda had faced Hollows, Arrancars, Espadas and the rare Quincy on the field, sure. Despite what people thought, the fukutaicho-badge didn’t come to him through his family. (He always felt that funny, that people would be dumb enough to accuse Soi-Fon taicho of nepotism. Like, did they not _see_ her? A _rock_ would be friendlier.) But what he hadn’t faced was the entire population of the Gotei 13 compacted in a whole massive structure that chattered and buzzed and hummed like a great sentient…something that churned his insides in an odd manner.  Even the reishi binding the metal together vibrated with a constant thrum that unsettled him.  
It made Omaeda sick.  
  
The yawning arena dwarfed him, but that could be because of the nature of his work, he rationalized.  
Stealth and swiftness were the key-qualities any Shinigami had to possess in order to be reckoned for acceptance in the Second Division. They housed the Intelligence Recon Unit, the Punishment Force and the Secret Remote Squad, all of which would fall into disarray if they were to abandon their usual guerrilla tactics and submit to brash one-on-one brawls like the Eleventh Division and its axe-crazy taicho. Despite how he looked, and his usual demeanor, Omaeda could pull his weight in a Division like that.  
They had to be invisible, sudden, unsuspected and fatal like a silent disease that ravaged an entire city. Like a strange traveler passing through a remote mountainous hamlet, leaving every house dead silent in his wake. A freak occurrence. Unexplained blood. The space between the printed lines. A magician’s sleight of hand.  
  
The reason why the brunt of the policing fell to the Second Division was because of these qualities, and it was these very qualities that made them beyond lethal.  
  
_Lethal._  
  
Omaeda’s eyes darted down, to the smaller, petite frame of his taicho standing on his right. The wind buffeted her haori and the thin sleek braids whipped around her solemn face obstructing her expression, the hair rings tinkling in unison like wind chimes. Soi-Fon taicho stood bolt upright, her ramrod straight, her hands clasped firmly behind her back, shielding the sheath of her zanpakutou, her legs planted slightly apart. She looked like a bolt of lightning frozen in time.  
  
And as it is with forces of nature, Omaeda had spent decades wondering where she would strike next.  
  
He was just beginning to turn his mind from such confusing matters to food, or sleep, or both when, with a light scraping of the shoe against the ground, his taicho moved from his side, to stand directly in front of him, facing the Captain Commander, the Committee and the whole gathering, hands at her sides now, curled into fists. He heard her take a shaky breath, the second exaggerated expression of her nervousness since she had set foot on the arena.  
  
_Soi-Fon taicho wouldn’t breathe loud enough to wake the dead_ , Omaeda thought. _She wouldn’t do anything loud enough to wake the dead. She probably hits herself in her head if she feels like her thoughts are making too much noise._  
  
_What is it, taicho?_  
   
Soi-Fon opened her mouth to speak:


	4. Prologue (IV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No excuses for being irregular as fuck with updating.  
> None, apart from the usual suspects: the soul-crushing weight of college work, self-esteem lower than 'em apple-bottom-jeans and boots with the fur (with the fur), and life, quite reliably, falling apart. 
> 
> Hope you guys like this ;_;

“You must all be aware that exactly a month from today," concrete-slab eyes turned a leisurely 180 degrees, giving every individual Shinigami the distinct impression that they were being pierced "intruders from Hueco Mundo had invaded Seireitei up to the 12th District of Rukongai under orders.” Soi-Fon squared her shoulders that had slouched infinitesimally under the scrutiny of a thousand pair of eyes. She could never accept how self-conscious working with literally anyone who wasn't her subordinate would get her. “ Orders issuing from _where_...hasn't been confirmed as of yet. However, it is no secret that, even as we hold the traitor Aizen in prison in the very depths of a secret facility, those of his Espada that haven’t been killed or scattered have joined forces to somehow create and sustain, no doubt formidably, an organization that, as the boldness with which they launched the attack suggests, has Espada-Council aspirations."  
The audience sat, still as an army of marionettes. Only the wind whistled and her hair got in her face as she allowed them a moment, before resuming.  
  
"The attack was calculatingly staged when the Twelfth Division had been restructuring the shakonmaku and security was thus, compromised. This knowledge the opponent has of the interior administration of Seireitei itself raises very potent questions, but I am going to set speculation aside for the time being for the sake of a verbatim report that has the weight of my authority- the authority that comes with being a taicho.  
Combat teams were deployed from every Division a quarter of an hour from when they had made direct contact. It was understood to be a routine hollow-hunting assignment, since the majority of the intruders were apprised to be Exequias-level: indeed, about 3/5ths of the force were remnants of the Exequias squad, and the rest were made up by your garden-variety Gillian. Not higher. Given the status, the Gotei thought that the deployment of taicho would be unnecessary. We thus consolidated teams helmed by seated officers to apprehend the threat.”  
  
A pause.  
_This goddamn upwind._  
_Is Omaeda having a bloody aneurysm?_  
_I want to gut you in your lying, treacherous stomach Urahara-fucking-Kisuke._  
  
“But the SSRI, that was monitoring the status of the fights wherever possible, reported a strange occurrence: apparently the ranks that had invaded Seireitei _were_ Exequias, but when provoked by any Shinigami, they’d undergo something akin to a _ressurecȋon_ and transform into...evolved entities. Kurotsuchi-taicho” she reluctantly pointed with her chin thrust out at the nightmare sitting on the front-most bleacher on the right, the bone-white fingers tapping impatiently as if he wanted her to get to the good part "believed that they straddled a thin line between an evolved Espada, and the Vasto Lorde. They certainly had the constitution of the latter, as I'm sure many among you are aware of." She could see some nods, some horrified expressions. The Captain-Commander looked oddly stormy.  _What, am I committing a murder here? We kill to keep the peace. Lose the horror.  
  
__"_ However, their abilities weren't as developed as a fully-formed Vasto Lorde. These entities mainly used various combinations of their Cero for both offense and defense. Apart from that, they seemed to possess remarkably developed intuitive abilities, but weren't as skillful in combat as Vasto Lorde are notoriously known to be." _I'm piling lies upon lies to make a fucking throne. Guess I'll get Hitsugaya to sit on it._  
  
The audience burst into a bout of whispering. Soi-Fon let waves of murmurs engulf the huge structure as she stopped for some air. The next part was going to be long.  
  
From where she sat, Rangiku could still see the broken arms that some carried in casts, or the bandages wrapped around others’ heads. Everybody was recuperating from an attack nobody knew would be this tough to bounce back from. The murmurs, the unrest. Rogue ambushing, as a concept, was quite common for Seireitei. But everybody had, in a way, after Aizen's incarceration, thought this particular struggle to have been buried six feet under. _With...Gin_. The thought overcame her like a late-evening cloud, and knuckles clenched hard on her knees as she let out a raspy breath. She looked ahead. The few bleachers at the front sat as still and unmoving as statues. _  
  
They hadn’t known this would’ve been a massacre. Even the taicho hadn’t known_.  
  
“However, they packed twice the punch. An unbridled rawness was the essence of their power, and this was unprecedented” Soi-Fon continued, raising her voice amidst the whispers as they gradually ceased “With the Gotei taking more and more hits, the Twelfth Division had no time to take stock of the issue, analyze it and devise a solution within such a short span of time. Every few minutes reports were coming in of combat teams being obliterated, especially at the fringes of the Rukongai where most of the creatures were sighted. Missives were sent to all the Divisions to deploy their taicho and fukutaicho in order to counter the carnage, effective immediately.  
I myself was just leaving my Division with my fukutaicho, when the Chief of the Secret Remote Squad relayed an urgent message of an event so singular that in the centuries spanning Seireitei’s history, nothing as grave has ever been known to happen.”  
  
A hush fell over the crowd.  
  
Soi-Fon looked straight ahead, at the Captain Commander and the Central 46 Committee- no, _through_ the Captain Commander and the Central 46 Committee.  
  
“The enemy had breached the Maggots’ Nest.”  
  
A collective gasp went up in the crowd.  
  
“The Special Detention Facility where we incarcerate Soul Society’s most dangerous domestic threats had been targeted and its West Wing had been decimated by two unbelievably potent Entities.” Soi-Fon continued. “I left, along with Hitsugaya Toshiro-taicho from the Tenth Division and Kuchiki Byakuya-taicho from the Sixth Division and their fukutaicho, in order to take care of the matter.”  
  
_Lies_ , Rangiku thought. _She shunpo-ed off in the middle of the message, and was halfway to the North Gate when Taicho and Kuchiki-taicho blocked her way to tell her they had orders from the Captain-Commander to not let her go alone. That she’d have to go through them if she insisted on taking on two such malicious aberrations by herself. I’d never seen her so mad. The ground cracked at her feet. She was ready to use Shunkou and fight her way out of it, but she stopped. They left, with Renji and me right behind them._    
  
Soi Fon had gone ahead with the report in the meantime “Upon reaching the facility, we saw the devastated remnants of the West Wing, though most of the inmates had been secured by the Punishment Force by the time we got there. We felt massive amounts of reiatsu, and discovered the creatures lying in wait for us. One tried to ambush Hitsugaya-taicho and…”  
  
But by this time, Rangiku’s thoughts had drifted off.


	5. The Ambush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck at writing fight-scenes.   
> Or smut-scenes.   
> Just writing, in general, I suck at.

They burst into a clearing, temporarily out of the heavy forest that cordoned off the Maggots’ Nest from the surrounding barren mountainous crags. In all her decades of service, she had only ever heard tales of the Secret Detention Unit; that too whispered in corners by people looking over their backs, scattering like bugs under sunlight if you approached them. Nobody knew where it was, even though they often passed it on their way through the mountain passes.   
She’d once tried, along with Renji, Shuuhei and a reluctant Kira to get Omaeda drunk so that he could give them a clue as to where exactly the facility was hidden. Surprisingly, Omaeda had kept his head about him even after the 7th consecutive cup. He was as red in his face as a good-luck charm, and kept seeing his taicho's disgusted expression in the nori of his ramen. His surprisingly low tolerance notwithstanding, the only thing he had said, slurring, to the 3 other lieutenants who too were in various states of inebriation, was that the second Head of the Kido Corps had, along with the then Head of the Shihouin family set up layers and layers of military-grade security and surveillance Kido that constantly changed shape, mingled with each other, locked in with the structure of the facility and weaved through the bedrock of the mountain range itself. It stretched indefinitely in all directions. It threw off all perception almost completely, like Hirako taicho’s Sakanade, if anybody unauthorized came knocking within a 1km radius from the facility. Every taicho that the Second Division had had in its history had to have been trained rigorously according to a schedule devised by the Shihouin for years in order to be able to locate the Nest, before they received their haori.   
  
If anything, it had made her respect Soi-Fon taicho more, really. She had to figure it out all by herself. The only Shihouin left to teach her was branded a traitor and banished.   
  
When they had been shunpo-ing through the forest, Rangiku noted how dense it really was, with closely huddled trees so tall and thick sunlight didn’t even reach the ground. A cool air filled the space between the old, old pines like stasis had gained a body. The forest seemed to be drawing breath with every small breeze that found its way into the curiously green light. Itself, the forest was more confusing than the maze of underground waterways in Seireitei. The trees seemed to be...waiting. Something was on the horizon. Something would always seem to be impending, in environs such as this. Rangiku decided, flashing from branch to branch, keeping up with her irate taicho, that forests weren't for her.   
  
Breaking into the clearing, the glare of the sun almost overwhelmed her.   
  
“Matsumoto!” her taicho snapped “Stay alert!”   
“Hai, taicho!”   
Kuchiki-taicho nodded to Renji.   
  
They were still in the underbrush, effectively hidden by the dense shrubbery that ringed the clearing. With successive light thuds, the party landed on the soft green grass, all except Soi-Fon, of course, who landed on the balls of her feet swiftly without a sound.   
  
_Disconcertingly like a cat_ , Rangiku thought. _Disconcertingly like Shihouin Yoruichi_. But she had no time to admire Soi-Fon’s catlike graces, because-  
  
  
“Is that the one?” Hitsugaya taicho asked quietly. Rangiku whirred around at the same time as Renji did, following the taicho’s gaze.   
A single, white figure stood at the far end of the clearing. It was immobile, silent. Close enough to discern the more intimidating aspects of its physique: the sharp curved horns that rose from its temples, the _wicked_ claws, the smooth unblemished hierro.   
“It has four hands.” Kuchiki-taicho mused “Like the Espada Kurosaki Ichigo fought in Hueco Mundo.”  
"Didn't Nnoitra have six, taicho?" Renji asked, hesitantly. Kuchiki-taicho made no comment.   
  
“Weren’t there supposed to be two of them?” Hitsugaya-taicho looked back at Soi-Fon.  
  
“Yes, two.” Soi-Fon said, tearing her murderous eyes off of the creature for enough time to look at him.   
  
“Then what happened to th- _umf!_ ”  
  
With all the speed and ferocity of an avalanche, a blur of white and a grinding noise _slammed_ into Hitsugaya taicho from the dense undergrowth at the back, sending him flying to the middle of the clearing.  
“Taicho!” Rangiku screamed, pulling out Haineko with a _shnng_ of the metal against the sheath. Hitsugaya had been able to use the momentum at the last moment to bounce off a huge shriveled pine trunk lying askew nearby and land in a crouch in the middle of the clearing. She was about to run to his aid when Renji pinioned her arms from behind “Rangiku-san! Don’t! Look!”   
  
A second humanoid figure blocked their way: closer than the other, taller than Renji by a head or two, but this had two arms. Its entire face was black, no eyes, but from within that blackness, when it opened its mouth, four rows of sideways-mandibles clicked, clacked and whirred like a scorpion’s mouth. A sickly white foam rose in beats, the white hierro covered his chest, arms and legs. An inky black fur covered all the way from its waist till its thighs, and black claws stronger than metal protruded from the strong, bone-white fingers.   
  
“Matsumoto!” She heard Hitsugaya-taicho calling out from behind the figure “Don’t engage!”  
“Matsumoto-fukutaicho-“Soi-Fon said “Wait till you’re given further ord-“  
  
_Oh, please.  
  
_ “ _Unare_ , Haineko!” With lightning speed, she advanced towards the white figure. Haineko’s blade dissolved till the hilt into ash. “Haaah!” With a swish of her right hand, the ash enveloped her surroundings, eating away into everything around and under her- the ground, the grass, the trees. The creature stood undisturbed with its back to Hitsugaya-taicho.   
  
She curled her hand into a fist, and the ash speeded towards the Menos, curled up in a huge ball, completely swallowing it inside its swirling vortex.   
  
_Gotcha_ , she smiled.   
  
An earth-shattering roar resonated from within the huge swirling ball. _What_?! Eyes widening in disbelief, Rangiku flashed back four or five steps. “Bakudo number 44: Sekishou” She heard Kuchiki-taicho’s incantation literally a moment before the ash blew with a huge noise in all directions. _What th_ \-   
She flicked her wrist from within the shield that had flickered to life, trying to dispel the ash faster.  
   
“Lower the shield, Taicho!” she heard Renji call out. Kuchiki-taicho nodded. Once the white energy shields were lowered, Renji passed his hand over the blade of his katana: “Howl, Zabimaru”.   
  
The katana turned into a _nasty_ , broad, sharp affair like a modified butcher’s knife wielded by a giant. The sun glinted on the spine, slipping on the smooth raised edges of the sharp spikes. Renji turned to her with a grave expression “Come on.”   
  
They ventured out into the clearing ash, tentatively measuring their steps.   
  
The ash was mostly cleared, and-  
_Wait, what was that red thing?  
  
_ They could make out, right in front of them, with the ash still clearing from the area, the face of the creature, its mouth open wide, mandibles retracted with a huge red ball of pure energy forming in it.   
  
“Cero!” She screamed, wielding Haineko’s ash like a shield.   
“Too tough, aintcha?” Renji stepped in. “Bankai!”  
  
With a splitting noise, the ash blew with a thundering impact even as Rangiku dug her feet in and brought her arms up to shield her upper half. The menacing sword transformed into a terrifying, huge skeletal serpentine structure. The snake-skull with the red mane growing out from where it joined the spine towered over the oldest, tallest pines in the forest, emitting a shrill cry that made Rangiku’s ears bleed. Rows of sharp teeth protruded all the way along its jaw. Without any pupils, the merciless glare of the yellow eyes was that much intimidating. The massive zanpakutou form coiled around Renji on the ground, protecting its master with a bony shield that could very well rival any hierro.   
  
Renji smirked “Hihio. Zabimaru.”  
  
It wasn’t often that she saw Renji’s Bankai from this close, and thank whatever gods there be for that because this was a _nightmare_. Renji’s eyes glinted (“ _Damn ex-Eleventh Division_ ” Rangiku thought) “Hikotsu Taiho!” With the shrill screech of a thousand cicadas, Zabimaru’s Baboon Bone Cannon collided headfirst with the creature’s Cero. Rangiku flashed out of the way in the nick of time. The very air seemed to catch fire, as the explosion shook the ground and felled trees around the clearing.   
  
When the dust settled the creature stood in the middle of the clearing, just as before, smoke rolling up from its limbs. Its face was the picture of-well what could Rangiku say what its face looked like? It didn’t _have_ one.   
  
Renji’s, on the other hand, was the picture of incredulity. “Not even a single _scratch_?!” He complained eyes wide in disbelief. For all that Renji’s attack had done, the hierro looked like it had been brushed with a feather. “Oh man! You one of ‘em freaks?” Even Zabimaru screeched plaintively, before Renji reverted it back to his shikai.   
“It’s a Vasto Lorde, Renji” she called out, straightening up and flashing to his side “It doesn’t get freakier than this.”   
  
“Enough!” Soi-Fon taicho called out from behind them. “I’ll leave the three of you with this one, Kuchiki. Hitsugaya and I will take care of the second one.” Saying so, she flashed away.   
In the distance Rangiku heard the unmistakable battle cry:  
“ _Soten ni zase_ , Hyourinmaru!”   
  
Immediately the blue sky was shut off and darkened as ominous black clouds came rolling over the horizon, sealing the huge area off in the eye of Hyourinmaru’s storm. She could smell the ozone in the air. Lightning cracked and sparked menacingly in the storm cells every now and then. Thunder growled low, brewing a storm, shaking the earth. Rangiku managed to glimpse the form of her taicho, the child-prodigy Toshiro Hitsugaya standing suspended in thin air with the fearsome ice-dragon zanpakutou Hyourinmaru loosely coiling around him.   
  
He looked back at her, turquoise eyes now glowing a disturbing electric blue “I’m counting on you, Matsumoto”.   
  
“Hai.”She responded, flashing to Kuchiki-taicho’s side. _Playtime is over._  
  



	6. The Falling Angel

_This has gone on for long enough._  
  
“Renji.” he called, an irritation dangerously lacing his voice.  
“H-hai Taicho!” Renji flashed back to his side “Do we wait for him to attack or-“  
“I will cover you and Matsumoto fukutaicho. You will press him. _Hard_.”  
A huge grin spread on Renji’s face. “Oooh!” Matsumoto figured, tensing her sword-hand “Ready when you are, Kuchiki taicho!”  
“Be attentive.”  
“Yes sir!” both voices shouted in unison.  
  
“ _Chire_ ” Byakuya unsheathed his katana “Senbonzakura.”  
  
The blade dissolved into a sea of cherry-blossom petals. Byakuya motioned with his right hand, and the thousand sharp blades rose up, rushing at the monster at breakneck speed. The Vasto Lorde dodged, but Byakuya was having none of that. Wave after successive wave of the blades kept up with its superior sonido; trying to envelope it, pummel it into the ground. The hierro was finally beginning to show signs of wear. The creature was finally beginning to show signs of anger. It roared and thrashed, moving so fast it left behind afterimages trying to outrun the deadly sea. The huge sea of the blades rammed into wherever it flashed to; again, again, again. Repeatedly till all that could be heard were its angered roars and the sonic boom every time it flashed to a new spot. Possibly deciding to finish the nuisance off at the root, it flashed close to the company and lunged for Byakuya, an unholy roar deep at the back of its throat. Flicking his wrist up, Byakuya shielded himself with a wall of the cherry blossom petals. The creature smashed into the shield headfirst mid-roar, hundreds of blades piercing its hierro. It stepped back, shook its head and bellowed loud enough to wake the dead. _Disoriented and angry_ , Byakuya thought. _Perfect_.  
  
Byakuya motioned with both hands. The entire mass of the cherry blossom petals swirled up to the dark sky. Lightning set the four horizons on fire. The huge mass paused, hanging for a minute. Then with a wave of his hand, Byakuya made it crash down on the creature.    
“Now.” Before the word was out of Byakuya’s mouth, Renji and Matsumoto had flashed to the spot, zanpakutou drawn and at the ready.  
“Howl, Zabimaru!” Renji shouted, and the huge sword separated at the joints, swinging around like a murderous whip. “Hyaah!” Matsumoto dispersed Haineko in the air, controlling the ash like a huge blade, a touch away from the disoriented monster.  
  
But the monster wasn’t disoriented anymore.  
  
Renji realized it too late. The creature grabbed hold of the edge of his zanpakutou, the blade cutting deep into its hierro. With a roar, it tugged hard, and Renji simply had the time to look very, _very_ betrayed before the force made him fly right at the creature, who then grabbed Renji’s entire head in its free hand and smashed him, head first, into the ground at its feet.  
“Renji!” Matsumoto shouted, anger and fear clouding her vision. She ran at the beast emitting a feral cry, while Byakuya’s sea of cherry blossoms divided into thirty arms to pierce it from every direction.  
“Bakudo number 4: Hainawa!” she cried, pointing her index finger at it. Glowing yellow spirit ropes crawled into existence, dashing towards the creature to bind it in energy. Without so much as missing a beat, the creature reached its left arm out, palm outspread.  
  
_Boom!_  
Matsumoto didn’t even have the time to scream. The force of the explosion threw her into the air, and within a second, strong bony hierro was around her neck. The creature, using the explosion, pushed her right into the trunk of a tree at the far end of the clearing. Raising her high up with its grip around her neck, it roared like a wounded tiger and thrashed her head into the trunk. Again. Again. Again. Blood gushed from her head, burned under her skin, bubbled to her mouth. It stood up straight, its hand around her neck, raising her further and further up from the ground. _Can’t…breathe…_  
  
Her head was swimming; her throat mere moments from collapsing in a haze of mindless pain. She strained against the grip, kicking her feet in the air, giving it all the fight she had left.  
“Bankai” Even in the haze, she recognized the low, deep voice. The storm, the clearing, the fight…it all melted away. A pervasive blackness, as cool and calm as a deep pit washed over her private bubble of torture. It enveloped her and the monster like a cloak, its grip on her neck as unyielding as earlier. Fatigue and bursts of pain competed for dominance in the parts of her body that she could still move. From the vanishing point in the horizon as far as her blurred vision could make out, rows of huge blades of katana rose towering over her as far as the eye could see. Kuchiki-taicho stood in the middle of the emptiness, right behind the creature, obsidian eyes as sharp as knives, lips pressed tight, not a hair out of place. Deliberately slowly, he raised his right arm up parallel with the ground:  
  
“Senbonzakura Kageyoshi.”  
  
The million blades burst into a roiling, coiling, _writhing_ turmoil of a thousand million cherry blossom petals, blocking out the blackness. With a horrible screech, the Vasto Lorde dropped her to the ground, disappearing in the sea of pink. Byakuya’s eyes snapped to the right.  _Left. Middle. Right again_. His eyes widened, muscles tensing up in his feet to flash: _Ce-_  
The boom and crackle of the Cero ringing in his ears, he flashed to the far left of the darkness, stumbling. He grunted, eyes shut tight, a shock of pain shot up his right ar- _Right_.  
_Center._  
Bellow.  
_Close._  
  
Plunging the sea of sharp petals down on the reiatsu with his left arm, Byakuya flashed back ten steps. The creature wouldn’t be outdone. _Its reiatsu_ , Byakuya realized, grabbing his right shoulder tight to stop the bleeding. _It’s fluctuating_. But he had no time to think. He whipped his head back in response to the hissing air, and with a horrible burning-metal smell, deflected the red crackling energy with his sword. Cero after cero came out of the deadly pink sea, each of which ran the length of Senbonzakura’s blade before being deflected right back into the storm. Byakuya’s right arm felt like a useless lump of meat, the pain was already spreading to his shoulder. Grey eyes severe, he tried concentrated, trying to pinpoint the reiatsu. _Hollows can’t suppress their spiritual pressure_ , he thought, probing for any other pressure than his own in the writhing sea of pink. His shoulder bled hard, as he grasped it tighter in response to the overwhelming pain. _There._  
  
Flashing behind it, he didn’t give it a beat. Senbonzakura came up lightning fast in an arc, depositing a deep cut on the bony hierro. The creature roared, turning back with its massive claws upraised. It swung for Byakuya’s head, but he ducked down, on his knees, arcing the sword end precisely with his left hand, severing the tendons of the legs from the muscles. The creature thrashed, knees buckling. Reiatsu burnt the air. Byakuya flashed to a distance, motioning with his left hand, and then curling it into a fist. The sea of petals wrapped around the fallen Hollow wreaking havoc. It bellowed and roared, trying to stand even with its tendons hanging loose.  
  
_You will stay down._  
  
“Hado number 58: Tenran.”  
The sizzling scream of the Hado was met midway by a Cero, exploding so loud it made Byakuya’s ear pop. With the residual energy clouding its vision, the beast finally lunged at Byakuya with its arms outstretched. The petals swirled around them as steel clashed with bone. _So it can keep fighting, even after that._  
  
The Vasto Lorde, or whatever it was, wasn’t going to give up without a fight. It knew its end was near. With roar after roar, it slashed at Byakuya with lightning speed, pushing him back bit by bit. He parried every attack, taking a step back each time, face an immovable mask, eyes cold and grey like his katana. His right arm had gone numb from the pain. Slashes grazed his arm, but he didn’t even blink. He had been schooled in shunpo by that were-cat, the Goddess of Flash, he thought to himself. No Arrancar’s sonido was going to outdo a Kuchiki, injured or otherwise. He flashed seven steps back. The creature roared in outrage and flashed right in front of him, its huge hand raised over his head ready to finish him off.  
  
A beat.  
  
Then blood sprayed out in an arc from its stomach to its left shoulder.  
  
The Vasto Lorde howled in pain, falling to its knees. The hierro was butchered deep along the arc, blood flowing down from the wound onto the white bony remnants of the skin. Byakuya’s voice came from behind it “Foolish.”  
  
“Taicho look out!”  
  
Byakuya’s eyes widened just in time and he flashed out of the way of the swinging metal. The creature had swerved its body around in an arc, swinging its claws in a last attempt, hoping to sever Byakuya’s feet from the rest of his body. Standing at a distance now, his brows furrowed slightly, he brought his left palm up to face the creature squarely in the scorpion mouth “Hado number 33: Soka-“  
  
“Hikotsu-” _Renji, no._ “-Taiho!” With a god-awful screech, the red crackling energy _rammed_ into the upper half of the creature’s body, blasting through its hierro and piercing through the chest. Byakuya immediately brought his arm up to shield himself, silently scalping Renji for his brashness. An ungodly shriek, and a smell of burning metal later, the Vasto Lorde broke down, hierro and all, disintegrating into dust.  
  
As the dust settled, Renji stood panting a few steps away, Zabimaru coiling around him. “Taicho!” he exclaimed, running at him, blood running down his forehead “Are you okay!”  
Byakuya glared at him.  
“O-oh” Renji stopped a few feet away “I didn’t mean to butt in taicho” he hemmed, looking awkwardly at the ground “Y-you just looked like you needed some hel-I-I me-“His eyes snapped to Byakuya’s drenched haori “Taicho you’re bleeding!”  
  
Byakuya closed his eyes. Dealing with Renji took a lot of patience and he didn’t have much to begin with. “Tend to Matsumoto. She is unconscious.”  
“But Taicho-“  
“ _Renji_.”  
Renji looked down, cutting the panic in his chest off. Taicho’s right shoulder looked like it had been blasted with a bazooka, his right arm was hanging funny, and he had multiple bruises all over him. The haori was drenched with blood from the shoulder. He was losing blood fast. _Dammit, this is not the time to be an arrogant prick, Kuchiki Byakuya_ , Renji thought, reverting Zabimaru to its shikai.  
  
_“Hitsugaya!!”_  
Soi-Fon’s harrowing scream _ripped_ through the ominous stillness of the impending storm, piercing the old pines with an almost metallic, hounded clarity. Snapping their eyes away from the remnants of the monster, both Renji and Byakuya whirled around. Thunder cracked and boomed over their heads, and a bolt of lightning tore screeching from one end of the skies to another at the exact same moment. Eyes widening, in the minute flash of the lightning bolt Byakuya saw beautiful ice.  
  
Breaking. Shattering. Disintegrating.  
  
_Falling._  
  
Hitsugaya Toshiro was falling. The massive frozen buds of the zanpakutou’s wings still protruded from the back of his blood-splattered haori, but the unbreakable wings themselves had shattered in a _mesmerizing_ , breathtaking shower of ice crystals that fell in rain like a beaten majesty around his falling form. They had caught the flash of the lightning, and twinkled like grace enveloping a falling angel. A fallen angel approaching the ground too fast.  
  
“Hitsugaya-taicho!!” Renji cried out, veins standing out on his neck.  The ground gave with an audible _grkk_ to his right, where his taicho was standing just a moment ago.  
Air roared by Byakuya’s ear as he flashed, covering the distance of the field, trying to intercept his falling comrade. _It’s too far_ , his eyebrows knit together in realization and frustration as he approached the last leg of the distance, Hitsugaya’s body about to touch the rock hard ground, _I can’t…_  
  
Lightning flashed somewhere on the field in Byakuya’s peripheral vision, and a resounding sonic boom whizzed right past his ear. Eyes widening, Byakuya came to a fluid halt as something lunged at the spot, sending up a shower of dirt and an audible _thwack_.  
The dust settled on a black shihakusho, its back to Byakuya, cradling a barely-conscious Hitsugaya in its arms. Within a heartbeat, Senbonzakura was grazing its neck, Byakuya’s left arm dripping blood from his handguard onto the shoulder of the black cloth. His eyes were cold. The demand was simple: _Let him go._  
  
Even from the back, the figure seemed to smile. It turned, still cradling the unconscious captain.  



	7. Point of Contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OC entry. Please don't hate ;_;

The first thing Byakuya noticed wasn’t the face. This had been something that he had seen in himself forever: he’d never notice the important things directly. His eyes would always go to the accentuations, supports, bolsters that framed, almost made up the main attraction. His eyes always sought out the quiet things, the things that toiled behind the scenes, the black that made the white stand out in all its purity.   
  
The white moon against the dread night, the stillness that would carry into his- no, their- bedroom the smell of cherry blossoms at their prime, the cool throat before he’d push burning sake down it night after night after Hisana went away, the silence and the cool peerless sheets on his- no, _their_ \- bed as he’d writhe in the covers every night, too far gone in agony to embrace the alcohol’s drifting comfort.   
  
This is how it was with Hisana.   
  
The first thing he had noticed was her eyes. Two calm, iridescent pools of Prussian blue depths and even darker, deeper sorrows. Sorrows she couldn’t share. Sorrows she took to her early grave. Beholding such silent, suffering beauty Byakuya had known, right there in an izakaya in Rukongai, that love was a storm stripping away every last bit of the noble he was, leaving him heartbroken, leaving him just a man. Just an ignorant, arrogant, helpless man in hopeless, endless love.   
  
But the eyes didn’t have it this time. This time, Byakuya noticed the blackness.   
  
The long, sleek black hair that framed the face, falling on her forehead, brushing her cheeks and spilling onto her right side like a stream of ink flash-frozen, cowed and held in place with sloppy lashings of thin crisscrossed ribbons. Her face itself was dark, curiously russet and gold. Yet, her eyes were a dull mottled green to his obsidian depths, calm marshes to his veins of silver. The only thing they did was reflect.   
  
“Who are you.” He demanded, posture rigid, glacier cool, cutting. “What do you want.”   
  
She made no answer, putting Hitsugaya down on the ground gently, and then kneeling by his side.   
  
_Shhng_. Senbonzakura rang out right under her throat.   
“ _Do not be insolent.”_  
“Put it away.” Her hand went to Hitsugaya’s chest, severely bloody with his flesh torn off around the pectoral area. “I’m an ally, I come in peace. I can help.”   
  
A small white dot of energy formed around her fingertip, and stretched to shield the deep gushing wound, forming scarred tissue quickly. _Rudimentary healing kido_ , Byakuya realized with a start.   
She sighed, getting up and turning to him. “Let me help.”  
Irritation flashed through Byakuya. This was not the moment to endure backtalk from a mere officer, that too directed at him of all people: The formidable head of the noble Kuchiki clan, a taicho in his own right.   
  
He fixed her with his sharp glare “You shall state your full name, Division, and rank within said Division. Then you shall go to your duties… _elsewhere_. Your assistance is not required here, _Shinigami_.”   
  
“Kuchiki!” Soi-Fon’s distressed voice came from above. Byakuya’s head snapped up. Soi–Fon, suspended in the air, had shed her haori. The deep bloody gashes on her back were clearly visible. Blood ran down her forehead. Her eyebrows were knit together tight in concentration, trying to follow something with her eyes. Byakuya couldn’t feel any reiatsu. _Strange._ Suzumebachi’s stinger was already on her hand, Byakuya noticed. _Where did it go?_   
Her eyes kept flitting to her sides, as she took her stance in a crouch, breathing with a lot of difficulty “This one’s fast. Take Hitsugaya and get out of here, I’ll handle it.”  
  
“Impossible.” He said simply, closing his eyes.   
  
If this wouldn’t have been Kuchiki Byakuya, Soi-Fon would have nailed him to a tree. How dare he underestimate her skill, her strength, her prowess? Did he think she couldn’t take on a measly monster? She was a renowned Master of Shunpo, unparalleled in Hakuda, Captain of the Second, Commander of the Punishment Forces, practically bred to be a ruthless killer.   
  
Instead, she looked down at him with her weary eyes, hoping he’d get the gist. _This is_ my _Division. This is_ my _failure. Only_ I _shall bear its consequences_.   
Byakuya quietly looked back. _There is no honor in deserting_. _We_ will _fight._  
  
“Cero.” He heard her state, simply. He looked down from the brief glare-match with Soi-Fon. The Shinigami woman was kneeling down once again, checking how the healing was coming. Byakuya spared a glance as well. The scar-tissue seemed to be well in place. Hitsugaya was stirring. “Block that Cero.”   
  
Byakuya felt like he’d missed a step. “What Cero?” He asked flatly.   
  
A horrendous metallic screech sizzled through the air. Byakuya whirled around, eyes wide, hand immediately going to the hilt of his katana. A monstrous crackling ball of pure energy was running screaming at him. “Move! Kuchiki!” He heard Soi-Fon shout.   
“Chi-“ _Ba-boom!_ His hands immediately went up to shield himself as the deafening explosion blew out on all sides. His eyebrows knit together, something feeling off. _Why was there no impact?_  
In a few moments, he brought his hands down, looking to see what had blocked the Cero’s progression. To say that he wasn't prepared, would be a massive understatement.   
  
Smoke curled off the broadsword that the Shinigami woman held up, her posture braced for the impact of the Cero. She stood in front of him, _shielding_ him, holding up, with both hands, the flat surface of the broadsword to face the attack, deflecting the Cero off it. It had never reached him. Hitsugaya was almost awake behind him.   
  
Now she looked back at Byakuya with a grin, green orbs catching the sun turning marshes into emeralds “ _That_ one.”   



	8. The Fury

_Bubbles. Bubbles in the dark.  
A loud, splitting sound. Something burning on his chest, where the creature had blasted th-  
And suddenly, it was like the pressure was releasing. He was being catapulted to the surface, too fast.  
_  
“Ku-chiki.” Toshiro growled, opening his eyes, forcing himself back up in a sitting posture with difficulty. In a flash, he felt hands around him, helping him up. He looked at her, the black rippling hair in waves, the dull flash of green from under her black lashes. Chestnut skin. “Wh-who is-“  
“I’m here to help.” She replied, as if it helped. Standing by their side, Kuchiki’s stone face looked impossibly stonier by the minute. Almost like it was…uncomfortable. And hiding the fact.  
_“My god, emotions?”_ Toshiro thought, sitting straighter now _“Won’t the noble clan fall or something if Kuchiki emotes?”_  
“She is…insistent.” Kuchiki’s deep voice was placid as always, but there was an edge to the ice. An edge that Kuchiki usually wouldn’t have bothered to have.  
  
Toshiro was clearly muddled, but he spent no time on this latest addition, though he glanced briefly at the broadsword lying beside her. Since the Arrancar issue, he was more than used to having random people – allies or enemies- butt into his fights. The trouble was whether or not they could keep up.  He figured this Shinigami wouldn’t have any bad intentions, because it seemed like Kuchiki had, in his icy way, acknowledged, if not entirely approved of her presence. He made no immediate move to get rid of her, and with a monster to overpower, Toshiro felt that was good enough for him. For the moment.  
  
He scrambled to his feet, feeling a little wobbly. The entire upper half of his shihakusho was rags. “This may not be prudent, Hitsugaya-taicho.” Kuchiki mused, as he bent down with an audible _crick_ to retrieve Hyourinmaru lying beside him, the chain having snapped during the fight. “It’s a beast” he said, eyeing Kuchiki’s condition subtly. “Soi-Fon won’t be able to overpower it alone.”  
_With that deep a gouge on his shoulder, his right arm should be well nigh immobilized, his pain-sensation screaming bloody murder in his head._  
Outwardly, of course, the stoic noble looked about as perturbed as a wall.   
  
“I agree.” The Shinigami said, hoisting her broadsword up, looking up at the sky that had cleared up in the meantime.  Shocks of reiatsu could be felt all over the area, sometimes a flash or two. Soi-Fon was moving at breakneck speed.  The monster’s unblemished hierro had Suzumebachi’s crest marked on it in multiple areas, but no matter how fast Soi-Fon was, she couldn’t land her second-hit. “She’s at her limit. We need to back her up.”  
“Oi, Shinigami.” Despite the fact that he wasn’t overly concerned with this new development, the slightest whiff of insubordination raised Toshiro’s hackles. He felt like he had to be the one to put her in place lest she got any funny ideas, because Kuchiki sure as hell wasn’t going to grace this with anything other than his chastising-commoners -is-beneath-me-but-I-will-scalp-them-silently-with-my-eyes-nevertheless face. “You will stay at the back. Assist. ”  
  
She looked at him. For a full second. Almost like she was…surprised. Irritation flared through Toshiro as he tensed his sword-arm and released it again, feeling Hyourinmaru’s familiar grip against his skin.  _Which Division is she from? Is she daft?_  
  
“ _Oi_. Did yo-“  

“No I won’t.”  
  
With a resounding noise and a crackle of static behind her, she flashed away in the opposite direction, leaving Toshiro’s words waiting in his mouth. “Wait!” He cried, unable to believe the nerve of her. “Kuchiki.” He looked at the unchanging marble-face. Eyebrows were knit together, Senbonzakura was already out naked from its sheath. Kuchiki looked back, steel eyes.  
“It is time we move as well.”  
  
With two consecutive flashes, the figures disappeared from the ground. “Bankai!” Toshiro’s voice came out guttural, burning. “Daiguren Hyourinmaru!” With a shattering scream, the upraised Hyourinmaru frosted over. Frost spread all over the young Captain’s body, eating into his hands, feet, vision, mind. Smoke rolled off his shoulders where towering masses of Hyourinmaru’s wings shunted out. With a ringing cry of finality, Toshiro charged into the world of ice. Behind him, he felt the infinite entities of Senbonzakura enveloping his course in a haze of death. “Hyoryu Senbi!” Plunging straight in the middle of the reiatsu shockwave, he brought Hyourinmaru down in a merciless arc, the frosted tip freezing the very air itself into a huge crescent. A beat and a roar later, Senbonzakura pummeled into the area. Toshiro flashed, with a bloody Soi-Fon, to Kuchiki’s side, who stood conducting the swirl of the petals looking stonier by the minute.   
“Hitsugaya how dare y-“ Soi-Fon began, incensed to a great deal but barely being able to stand. Toshiro cut her off with a smooth glare “You can’t move like that in this condition. I froze a path of motion to reduce its mobility.”  
  
"That is no excuse for butting into somebody else's fight."she almost but hissed, taking a threatening step towards him.  
  
"Cut it out. Why doesn't Suzumebachi work? Why can't you land the second hit?"  
  
Soi-Fon looked down, clasping her hands into fists by her side almost willing herself not to collapse. "Its not just... _fast_ ," she said with very obvious distaste and barely disguised fury "This one's reiatsu is fluctuating. It's moving at dizzying speed. And with its reiatsu changing valence at random, I can't map it."  
  
"So, you have to charge a line of sight?"  
  
"What do you think I am, some helpless _twit_?" she snapped "I'm the Captain of the Second. I have more than enough legroom to get around that."  
  
"Then _what_ " he snapped back "is your problem?"  
  
She lingered, bleeding, looking at him. Waiting for something. But presently, she gave it up with a sharp sigh.  
"It has superior intuition. So superior its uncanny. Its staying exactly 7 steps ahead of me."  
  
Toshiro was confused "What? What do you mean?"  
  
"Look" she said, voice dropping low "You can't...you need to fight it to understand what I'm talking about, okay? You're in no shape. I don't like saying it, but its predicting Hakuda."  
  
"That's a stretch." Toshiro frowned "The opponent can stay 3 or 4 steps ahead of you if they can predict the pattern. But Hakuda doesn't have a recurring one."  
  
"No" she agreed, quietly "It doesn't."  
  
The silence that followed was too cold, even for his tastes.  
"Soi-Fon" Toshiro said, caving, knowing how ridiculous all of this sounded "Vasto Lorde, or their likes, aren't...they can't...they can't make informed choices. The only things they're fueled by are rage. An all-consuming, bottomless fury."  
  
She squared her jaw, looking at him.  
  
Toshiro stared back, getting more and more incensed by the minute "You're telling me this one has the ability to make _informed choices_? To think ahead, think logically, choose one among several alternatives?"  
  
"I don't know about you, but that sounds like intelligence to me." Unyielding eyes, unyielding words."  
  
Toshiro stared back for a bit. Then he turned away to the carnage, readied himself, stance rigid “Kuchiki, give me an opening.”  
  
"Don't!" She cried "Kuchiki! You agree, right?"  
Byakuya didn't even turn.  
  
"You need to sit this one out, Soi-Fon." Toshiro looked at her "You're compromised, you can't think straight. The hit on Maggot's Nest might have been too much for you."  
  
She stared back, shell-shocked. Within seconds, shock was replaced by rage. "How _dare_ you call my competence into question!" she drew her voice out, guttural "The only incompetent one here is _you_! You're flat-out refusing valuable intel!"  
  
"Oh, that's rich" Toshiro's voice rang out, icy "Coming from you." He crouched, getting ready for Senbonzakura to open up "You who couldn't even keep her own Division safe. It was _your_ incompetence thar caused what might be the greatest containment crisis in the history of the Seireitei, Soi-Fon. We're here to help you clean up _your_ mess."  
  
The wind howled in his ears, and Senbonzakura roared like a wounded tiger. Soi-Fon didn't speak.   
  
"Now wait here, let me go see what its abilities are really like." He tensed his sword arm.  
  
He almost heard her mutter something.   
"What the _hell_ is your problem?" He snapped back, angry.   
  
“I said. I don’t need your help.” She ran over the syllables like turning over rocks in her hands.  
  
“What now?”  
  
Soi-Fon looked straight at him, blood running down her face, hair sticking to her forehead with blood and sweat. Something unknown in her eyes...something off balance. Something snapping. Desperation- Toshiro recognized desperation. And rage. Toshiro recognized the two constituting components of a Vasto Lorde.   
  
"Shunkou."  
  
A storm of reishi washed over Toshiro before he could so much as defend. “Bakudo number 39: Enkosen!” Kuchiki’s arm shot out in the nick of time, the blue shield flickering to life between them and the Second Division Captain before the waves of Kido and reiatsu she was channeling overwhelmed them. Reiatsu sparked, crackled and boomed around her, rolling and collapsing into her in white waves of sheer vaporizing potency, imbuing her with an overwhelming vortex of power. The ground cracked way way below her feet, rocks and tree trunks were dislodged by this sudden shift in spiritual pressure and rose up around her, hanging in the air. Where previously Hyourinmaru had frosted it over, now the air seemed to burn with unbearable static.  
  
“Soi-Fon! Stop!” Toshiro yelled urgently from behind the flickering walls of the shield. Soi-Fon had thrown her head back, her arms extended out to her front. Her body trembled with the new energy surging in and out of it. She snapped her head back to meet Toshiro’s eyes, unshaken in their fiery resolve. The Shunkou circled around her arms and her back in cyclones of deadly, burning brightness. With a piercing cry, Soi-Fon flashed away into the death-scene of Senbonzakura. Kuchiki, having dispelled the petals hurriedly, beckoned to a stunned Toshiro. “We are going after her.” he said, with one last wry look at him. “Oh for the _love_ of-“Toshiro muttered, gripping Hyourinmaru tighter, and flashing away.


	9. The End

The sound of battle hurtled in the air. Enraged roars, war cries had enveloped the clearing. The silent forest around them had grown impossibly quieter, a blank canvas against which they danced with the creature, leaving behind trails of thick blood. It had been over an hour since this had started, this ceaseless nightmare. Shunkou was taking its toll on Soi-Fon, Toshiro could see. Under the weight of channeling the Kido and reiatsu base, her movements had become infinitesimally slower, sloppier. Soi-Fon broke in such ephemeral, fleeting moments that, if it wouldn’t have been for the fact that they had worked together for millennia, he wouldn’t have been able to notice. Kuchiki had already gone into Bankai, but it had taken a slaughterscape for all of them to figure out that, in addition to Soi-Fon's claims, the creature was unfortunately able to regenerate itself on a minute corporeal level, and that it was speeding up. Much like its other abilities. The reach was longer with every swipe he parried, the roars got louder, the grip got stronger, the hierro got harder and harder. Toshiro didn't want to name what was happening, as he was fighting it. He didn't want to name what he was fighting. He was never an escapist, but here he didn't even want to glance at the alternatives. Something told him considering it would somehow stop him, in his tracks. Open him up. Kuchiki had probably understood the same thing as well. He tirelessly regenerated Senbonzakura, moving with the center of the storm's gravity with his katana unsheathed, looking for blood. Even Kuchiki's shunpo, and Soi-Fon's Shunkou-augmented flashcry were wearing off. 

He himself was barely able to stand. Both Ryusenka and Hyoten Hyakkaso had failed. The monster had crushed the 50th flower, and the subsequent reiatsu had melted Ryusenka before it had come into contact with the hierro. Toshiro couldn’t even find it in himself to despair. He ran through his offense mindlessly, probing, looking, lunging. But that last Cero Doble had very nearly grilled him. He flashed to a stop a bit away from the scene, trying to catch a breath. Between harsh breaths and leaden limbs, he merely grimaced in pain and disgust at the blood streaming down the multiple gashes on his chest and stomach. The last blow had left him winded, with blood spurting out of the particularly dangerous-looking gash from his right shoulder down to his left side. Soi-Fon had distracted the creature from the fatal blow by taking it head-on, while Kuchiki had covered his retreat. “Take a minute, Hitsugaya-taicho” he had advised, looking at Soi-Fon in merciless battle against the enemy. His jaw hardened in a subtle grimace to bear the weight of the immense pain he must be feeling. Hitsugaya hadn’t even been able to speak. He had nodded, looking up at the older captain and somewhat unsteadily flashed away from the spot. But not without a plan.   
  
Fatigue was setting in. Desperation was setting in. The last card was looking at him from the bottom of the now-empty box.

_Buy us some time._

He closed his eyes. The entire topography of this side of the mountain swam into focus beneath his eyelids. _Determine the circumference. Core Attack area can’t be too small. Put it in scale. Allow for reishi pressure._

His eyes snapped open as he flashed away, far far away from the clearing. Flashing to the outer woods, from point to point around the face of the ragged crag, Toshiro felt a sense of stability. This was grunt-work, this follow-up. It gave him time to think.  
_Where did that Shinigami go anyway?_ He thought, feeling the pain go numb from this surge of reiatsu pulsing through him. It was a temporary high, but it would work, give him the stamina he needed to complete the trap. _Where did she run off to?_  
He came to a halt for a moment, closing his eyes, trying to probe for any pinprick of reiatsu in the vicinity that he didn’t recognize. _No. It’s like she was never here._  
He shrugged to himself. _A weird way of deserting, but I can’t blame her. It’s a nightmare.  
_

* * *

* * *

“Hitsugaya-taicho.” Byakuya’s voice was cold as he greeted the child-prodigy some time after he had retreated from the fight. He stood conducting Senbonzakura in tandem with Soi-Fon’s murderous vigor as they clashed again and again with the creature. The pain screamed for him to pay it attention, but he clenched his teeth together under his pursed lips. _I am the master of my pain. My pain isn't the master of me._  Easier said than done, of course. His shoulder felt like a hollowed out container of flesh, bones mangled, a bowl someone was pouring hot lead into. 

“Kuchiki.” Hitsugaya nodded, looking somewhat better though sweat still beaded his face and his entire countenance looked impossibly pale. “I’m going to need a window of about a minute.”  
Byakuya’s eyes closed. “I see.”  
Hitsugaya took his stance beside him, and the minute Byakuya motioned with his hand, Senbonzakura’s carnage-scene opened up like a carnivorous flower. He really had to hand it to Hitsugaya, he thought because the fearless captain focused his entire attention on the swirling maw of static, sharp death and Cero under him and, with a strangled growl, dived straight in. Byakuya followed close, all gritted teeth and near-madness under the calm exterior to keep the pain from frying his senses. “Soi-Fon!” he heard him shout. The petite Second Division taicho was locked in hand-to-hand combat with the creature, wearing it down while Senbonzakura’s storm rampaged around them, butchering the hierro wherever it could before it regenerated. Even from this distance, he could feel the pressure of Soi-Fon’s reiatsu, surging like the tide in and out of the core shell of the attack area. She moved faster than even his trained senses could follow, kicking, punching, desperately looking for an opening. “Oh, goddamit” he heard Hitsugaya mutter beside him “Soi-Fon! She couldn’t have not heard!”

“Go ahead with it.” Byakuya said, with effort. “Go ahead with the trap. I shall back you up.”  
“B-But what abou-“

“Hitsugaya-taicho.” Byakuya said, quietly “We have faith in the Second’s Captain and her abilities. She will not let herself fall like this.”

And looking at her, all screams and unbreakable eyes, fiery; crackling reiatsu and precise, lethal movements locked in a deathscape with a sentient calamity, Byakuya could almost believe it.

He looked back at Hitsugaya. Into solemn, turquoise eyes.

“Alright, Kuchiki.” Hitsugaya nodded, closing his eyes, at the end of his rope. When he opened them, however, they weren’t the eyes of a taicho. They were the eyes of a warrior.

“Sennen Hyoro.” Byakuya heard the incantation, saw Hitsugaya’s arm shoot out extending Hyourinmaru to the sky. Heard the apocalyptic growl, hiss and rumble of the frozen ice pillars that materialized, almost being spun out of the air, and with the sentience imbued into them by their wielder, saw them closing in. Closing in like the inescapable iron-ice prison they were.  
The wind nipped Byakuya, temperature dropping fast in and around the area.  
Hitsugaya looked at him. “Go.”  
Senbonzakura roared as Byakuya dispelled the storm, flashing out of the core attack area. Soi-Fon had been waiting for the precise moment as well, he could see. She had snapped one of the four hands of the creature clean off, and with it fallen to its knees howling in pain and rage, she followed suit, flashing to as clear a distance as she could. As the surroundings froze over, Hitsugaya looked back at the figures, wry. Figures escaping from his world of ice.

The pillars had closed in, boxing him and the enraged creature into a tight space. The creature, Hitsugaya noted with some amusement, didn’t seem to do much but roar. But he didn’t have much time. Creating and maintaining the prison always took a toll on him. He would have to finish this quick. “Hyaah!” With a shout, he ran towards the creature, Hyourinmaru gleaming as ice and blade in one. The sword clashed with the hierro as the creature caught it between its two hands, depositing a deep gash on its right forearm. With an indignant roar, it lunged, but Hitsugaya was too fast. Flashing to its right, and then close to it, he brought Hyourinmaru down with all the force he could muster. Blood spurted out of the wounded beast’s shoulder as it roared and roared again, shooting its arm out. Trying to keep the pain screaming through his body from vaporizing him, Hitsugaya dodged it, whirling around t-

_“Urgh”_

Blackness took him away.


	10. The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. I made some abilities for the OC, but I didn't enjoin any notes translating her shikai command and I don't plan to do the same for any of her zanpakutou attacks cause I feel like it'd be really cool if you could google it. I mean, translate the names from Japanese to English. 
> 
> I just felt like it'd help with being more involved with the story.
> 
> Edit: I'm so sorry you guys, back when I'd looked this up and jotted things down to help me come up with names, I'd tried out different combinations of names and translated them into Japanese using an online translator. 
> 
> Obviously, like lots of things online, it wasn't as accurate as I'd have liked it to be. It was brought to my notice, by one of you who commented that apart from 'Arashi', nothing else had translatable English equivalents.  
> Neither Japanese not English are my native tongues, but this is still a serious mistake on my part cause I should've been more vigilant and double-checked my sources.
> 
> I'm truly sorry, and henceforth I'm going to be providing the English translations of all the names and attacks that are relevant to the OC in these beginning-notes.
> 
> For this chapter, Arashi= storm, so Arashi ē= To Storm (idk much about articles and their usage in Japanese, but the English translation is how I intend it to be read).  
> And Ketsueki= Blood  
> Kōgō= Empress.  
> So together, Arashi ē, Ketsueki Kōgō means something like "Storm/To Storm, Blood Empress".
> 
> (Could've gone for Ketsueki no Kōgō, meaning Empress of Blood, but it sounds like the wrong kind of dramatic. Anyway, I'm sorry if you guys had to face similar problems as the kind guy in the comments alerted me to, and it won't happen again~)

Byakuya saw it. Between attending to a Soi-Fon near the end of her consciousness and falling to his knees with the blood loss and the pain, he saw Hitsugaya charge. Hit. Dodge. Bite down a grimace of pain. Hit again. Dodge again. Whirl around.  
  
All this time, ever since he had heard snippets of the conversation between Soi-Fon and Hitsugaya, from even before that- he'd had an odd feeling about all this. A gut feeling, something small, something weaving itself into a pattern and disintegrating as soon as he paid attention to it. Under his somber scrutiny, the intuition would vanish. But it'd be there at the back of his mind, a small voice while he fought, telling him a piece was out of place in this whole endeavor. Byakuya didn't like calculations that didn't add up. He hated calculations he couldn't even observe. He hated relying on his intuition, no matter how many times his grandfather had told him a good warrior would pay attention to both strategy and intuitive abilities.   
  
But watching Hitsugaya charge again and again, the sense of wrongness built up in his broken body like a tidal wave with a breaking crest, rushing towards a small seaside hamlet.   
He didn't realize till it was too late.   
The realization ran electric through him and nearly a microsecond later, the creature’s other arm was clean through Hitsugaya’s back, protruding from his chest with his heart in its firm grip.  
  
No.  
_No._  
Move. He commanded his body. _Move._  
_Senbonzakura._  
I-  
  
With a deafening noise, the ice cracked. Howled. In a disastrous miracle, the impenetrable pillars of ice crumbled, falling on top of each other, falling to the ground below roaring and hissing of dissipated reiatsu. The prison was finished. With the creature’s hand still protruding out of his chest, Hitsugaya-or his body- twitched.  
  
_Duty_ , Byakuya thought. _Honor, truth. By everything that I hold holy, just move._  
  
No feeling. He couldn’t feel his legs, his arms that lay at his sides, both now useless lumps of meat.  
  
_Is this how it is to be then?_ His vision was darkening, an ignominious death was coming.   
  
He fought against it, stubborn till the very end. He raised his head, looking at the creature. The bloodied, battered hierro was regenerating, closing up the smaller gashes and quickly scabbing them over. Two arms on either side lay still. The third arm, the one on the right, it retracted from Hitsugaya’s body with an audible _splrt_ , Hitsugaya’s heart still in its hand. Then, gripping him by the neck, it raised him up, getting ready to fling the body away. _I can’t go on._    
  
“Oi, Arrancar.” A cadenced voice rang out in the whipping wind, like lapping waves hitting a titanium shore.  
_No._  
No, it can’t be-  
She was _gone._  
  
He turned. To the direction of the sound. Like a lost ship following the Pole Star as it rose above the horizon, taking it to safe port. The Vasto Lorde, Hitsugaya still suspended from its grip, seemed to do the same, turning slowly, languorously to face the new challenger. Two figures were silhouetted against the white wispy clouds. Both women. One in clothing from the World of the Living. Long orange hair. Troubled expression.  
  
_Inoue Orihime_ , he recognized. The girl who could reject causation.  
  
Standing beside her, being buffeted by the wind, was a black shihakusho. If shihakushos could look smug, this one did. The black rippling river of her hair whipped around her face madly. She seemed to nudge Inoue, now that she had gained the monster’s attention. Inoue nodded, still obviously torn. Very confused. She began running to where Byakuya and Soi-Fon were lying down, reishi footholds illuminating her every step.  
  
_The cr-the creature_ , Byakuya tried to call out to her. _It won’t let you pass._  
  
But she ran straight past it. Straight past the Vasto Lorde. It had gone as silent as stone, beady black eyes looking straight ahead at the Shinigami. Heavy clouds rolled over the horizon, shutting it off. Lightning sparked in them again, thunder grumbled low. Inoue was almost there.  
  
Byakuya had seen storms. He had manipulated Senbonzakura, a force unlike any other, for centuries. He had seen Hyourinmaru in action, and the change it brought over the affected area. He had heard stories of Ryuuijn Jakka, and the inferno it unleashed- cremating creation. But as the lightning lashed out from the storm cells that now stretched as far as he could see, and as the thunder rolled over the ancient forest right into his veins, as the wind picked up mercilessly and as the sky darkened and darkened into oily blackness, into a calm, beckoning darkness at the end of a well, one that thickened, suffocated and curled his insides into a ball that started thrashing for air, for an escape, for a grip on the mind he felt like he was on the verge of losing, he _knew_.  
  
He knew there had never been a storm such as this.  
  
Inoue dropped down on her knees, very nearly at the end of her rope. “Kuchiki-san!” she gasped, panting, eyes horror stricken as she took in the damage to his shoulder, his stomach, the gashes on his chest. “D-don’t worry, Kuchiki-san! I’ll try my best!”  
  
As she took her position in front of him, palms facing outward at his butchered body, he glimpsed her in the distance. The Shinigami, facing the Vasto Lorde. The hair flew around her face, dancing wildly in the whipping wind, obstructing her expression. But he saw her raise her right hand up, holding the broadsword. A menacing glint ran the length of the metal as she raised it up, up, up towards the black sky.    
The creature’s eyes followed it as it tilted its head up in tandem with her movement.  
  
A beat. The wind. A flash of lightning. A clap of thunder.  
  
Right before Inoue cast the warm amber shield, he heard it:  
  
“ _Arashi ē_ , Ketsueki Kōgō.”


	11. The Execution

Yamamoto allowed himself a small, unnoticed yawn. Granted, this wasn’t the time to be slacking off. Soi-Fon had just finished addressing the arena, filling them in on the details of what happened in that fight. Apparently, Kuchiki and Hitsugaya had been carried to the 4th Division by that Inoue Orihime girl and a barely conscious Soi-Fon had to be dragged out of the 2nd Division dojo after she had overexerted herself, burned through whatever residual energy Inoue's abilities had reinstalled in her into a near-coma. Inoue had had help, of course. _She_ had been the one to deposit Kuchiki into the 4 th’s care, followed closely by Inoue with Hitsugaya’s comatose body on her back. Then, she had reportedly strolled straight into the 2nd Division, _asking_ to be put into captivity. Bewildered officers had complied, putting her under house arrest in the East wing of the Barracks.   
  
And now here they were.   
_She will be overcome. She will be made an example of._  
  
“Thank you, Soi-Fon taicho.” Yamamoto moved to stand up, hands going to rest on Ryuujin Jakka’s staff in front of him. Sasakibe was at his side in a flash, expression vacant, stiff and straight. “I will now, with the permission of the Central 46 chambers, call upon the Captains and Lieutenants of the Gotei 13 to stand with me. The felon is to be brought to the arena as well. Now that we have had a complete report of the events upon which these circumstances stand, we shall begin the trial.”   
  
With a creaking of the first few bleachers, every taicho stood up, fukutaicho by their side and seated officers behind them. In a sea of black shihakushos, 12 immaculate white haoris stood out, with their Division numbers etched in bold black upon them. The steady breeze blew, silent, shadows slid across the yawning arena and the rings of bleachers, across the faces of the tense Shinigami packed into the structure. The collective interference of the reishi pulsed steadily as everyone awaited, with bated breath, the coming of the criminal.   
  
Wheels set to motion meters deep in the ground, small gears whirring and big levers pulling. Above the ground, across the space where the Gotei were standing, the wall of the arena was pushed to the side with a low grinding noise, revealing a hollow sunken chamber. A figure approached the sunlit arena tentatively, a bare foot stepping out into the circle, then another one. White clouds drifted across the sky, playing with the sun. In the middle of that throw of striking sunlight and cool shade, the figure appeared at the extreme end of the arena.   
“Approach.” Yamamoto’s voice boomed, static rising in the air.   
  
She complied, walking towards them with stilted, tentative steps. Out of the many emotions running through him, Yamamoto was surprised to recognize nostalgia. A montage of scenes flashed before him: an open space, yawning up like this arena itself. The dawn sky, the cool breeze. The stench of the corpses, the harsh cry of the ravens.   
  
She approached the council, looking up at where they stood; the Gotei 13 and its best and bravest in solemn groups. Shihakushos ruffled silently, white haoris blew in the wind.   
Watching her. The taicho were watching her.   
  
“Having been found guilty for past crimes whose grievous natures appeal to their confidentiality, you have forfeited all right to your person and your identity.” Yamamoto fixed her to her place on the ground with a clear statement of her rights “However, due to the circumstances a month earlier, we had seen it fit to keep you under house-arrest until an explanation of your contrary actions could be arrived at. In the meantime, we have received an appeal from you for a trial to reconsider your eventual incarceration. Your grounds have been your alleged claim to have access to intelligence that you have, somewhat strenuously, described to be of utmost importance for the preservation of the security and sovereignty of the Gotei in the near future.”  
  
He paused, minutely. Murmurs broke out in the bleachers as the words “security”, “intelligence” and “Gotei” ripped through the audience. Nipping speculations in the bud, his voice rang out again.   
  
“Ordinarily, you have no right to appeal against your return. The Maggots’ Nest isn’t a simple jail; it’s the end of times for those who enter it. However, seeing the… _extraordinariness_ of the situation” he went over the words with some difficulty “we have, along with the esteemed chambers of the Central 46, rather decided to hear what you have to say. So, if you have anything you would like to declare, speak in front of the institution you once were a part of.”   
  
She raised her head briefly, eyeing the elder councilman by his side before her marshy eyes darted to him. “I have stated this before, and I will state this again” she said, with an abruptness and ease that she had always had “I will speak to those who I choose.” she straightened up “Certainly not in the middle of an arena and certainly not to _you_.”   
A huge surge of reishi crackled in the air, overwhelming the ever-present buzz of the huge structure. Yamamoto saw Tengen ringing, grating out of its sheath as Komamura bared his teeth in a grimace, pointing it towards the convict.   
“Impossible!” The councilman declared, rising to his feet in anger “You dare show _insolence_ on this hallowed ground, in the presence of the Captain-Commander, in front of this institution you once had vowed to serve?”   
“I dare a great many things, Councilman.” she added, quietly as the sun hid behind the clouds. Shadows stretched across the yawning arena. “You would be _scandalized_ by all the things I would dare.”   
  
“This discussion is fruitless” Yamamoto cut in “Let this be stated that, along with the position you once held in the Gotei, you also held the deepest respect of the _law_.” The Councilman, with a start, noticed a look pass between the Captain-Commander and the convict. “We ask that you let yourself be judged by it.”   
  
There was a beat of silence as she stood, with almost a listening air.   
  
“No.” she concluded, her shihakusho sleeves fluttering in the wind as she folded her arms to her chest “I won’t.”   
  
The silence deepened.   
  
“I see. And why is that?” The Captain-Commander asked, rough.   
  
“Because I haven’t appealed.”   
  
A tense beat.   
  
“I have _demanded_.”   
  
The pressure of the collective reiatsu settled with a hard, thickening _snap_ as intense murmurs broke out among the audience. “How _dare_ you-“spluttered Komamura, barely able to keep his calm in the face of such insult afforded to the Captain-Commander. “Taicho!” Iba-fukutaicho turned to him, face equally red “Please!”   
The expressions on the other taicho ranged from discomfort to disbelief to wonder to murder.   
  
“I have _demanded_ ” she raised her voice, ringing with the clarity of a silver bell “that I be released from the inhumane position I have been bound in for” her green gaze darted to him “a _significant_ amount of time” she glanced away, addressing the taicho now “in the interests of this institution itself, and all that it protects and stands for. I have intelligence of a highly confidential nature that can only be entrusted to the authorities I deem capable. If in wrong hands, it shall ring the death knell of the Gotei 13 Divisions, and upset the balance between Soul Society and the World of the Living.”  
  
“Very convenient” The councilman staccato-ed as whispers in the crowd picked up “How the power to decide who to trust this possibly imaginary information with rests with you alone. On which grounds do you ask us to trust you? Your entire plan, convict, sounds to us like a carefully construed plot for treason.”

  
A bubble of laughter rose to her lips.   
  
“It is no wonder you seek vengeance upon those who have committed you to the depths of the Maggots’ Nest.” He continued, imperious from among a quiet audience as laughter consumed her more and more “Isn’t it a more likely explanation that you took advantage of the chaos of the destruction and ran, plotting foul vengeance in your heart? Isn’t that why you interfered in combat, hoping to gain the trust of the taicho as you fought alongside them, so that you could be brought back into the Gotei where your targets would be all around you, made more accessible to you? Isn’t that why you are trying to dissemble, even in the face of this trial? To buy time to carry out your nefarious plan? Well?”   
  
“A trial?” she was barely able to speak, being buffeted by waves of mirth “You call _this_ a trial?” Abruptly she stopped, eyes as hard as steel, as weary as the world. “Ah, let me see. An arena. A criminal. Sokyoku Hill. The entire Gotei in attendance.”   
  
She looked straight at the Councilman, green eyes hard even as laughter curled her lips “Is this what the Central 46 have come to? While I was away? Mucking up the basics?"  
  
"What do you mean?" He asked, imperious, unaware of the small, wry smile that Yamamoto hid.   
  
"Well, isn't it obvious?" She asked back, surprised."This is not a _trial_ , Councilman. This is an execution.”


	12. The Trial

Shouts and yells could be heard from the audience as the Councilman slumped back down in his seat, defeated.  
_Every time_. Yamamoto mused. _It’s embarrassing to be this transparent to her, of all people._ He could almost feel the hard gaze of the Kurosaki lad from down below. Waiting to see what he would decide. But before he could speak, put to sleep all such notions, she spoke again. Harsh words rode the winds when she fixed him with her gaze like a puppet.  
  
“As members of the Gotei 13, you recognize law, righteousness and loyalty as cornerstones for this institution, its beliefs. These virtues are your guideposts that have not wavered even in the darkest of times. What you have failed to realize, however” she threw her hands in front of her in a flourish “is that these and all other qualities that we call virtues are various manifestations of the one all-encompassing quality: strength.”  
  
_Do you hear that, Shigekuni?_ A phantom voice chimed at the fading edges of his thousand-year-old memories  _Do you hear that? That's-_    
  
She paused, the echoing silence holding him back from the splash in the stream of nostalgia.   
  
“All your beliefs are various manifestations of strength. It guides you, each one of you, in every aspect of your life here- be it as a member of this institution of order, as a brother, mother, father, sister, daughter, son, husband, wife, friend, lover, subordinate, superior what have you. Strength is the endgame. Strength is what you recognize.” She waved her hand dismissively “I am not talking about pure physical prowess here, no. Any half-trained ape would be able to pick up a sword and stab. I am talking about the strength of spirit. Your aim, to protect Soul Society and the World of the Living, would not have been achievable had you not possessed a similar quality deep inside yourself, where you find something to believe in and hold on to it strongly." She paused to look around the stone-silent arena "Every one present here today, every one of you looking at me, despising me, fearing me- everyone here has something they fight for. Something they stand up for. Something they protect. What is that, if not strength?"  
  
A beat.  
  
"Therefore, I suggest that you judge the worth of my claim on _that_ basis- on the basis of _strength_.”

  
She looked up at the committee, “Unless, of course, you believe that I am _stronger_ than all your Captains and your Lieutenants combined. Of course,” she mused, mischievous “that would mean that your institution, and these the things you believe in, protect, fight for are absolutely meaningless, a farce, they cannot work to preserve order in Soul Society for what chance” she motioned with her hands “do _you_ lot have as protectors if such threats like myself exist even inside the shakonmaku? Hypothetically, of course, Shinigami, that would mean that I had been sitting in the most impenetrable, highly-guarded _fortress_ of a prison all this time of my _own._ ” Her eyes glowed, livid with some wild emotion, being submerged as soon as it had raised its head “ _Free._ _Will._ ”   
  
She paused.  
  
"Rather than being forced to. Hypothetically, again. So, what do you think?” She looked up at the silent audience, glued to their seats, too apprehensive to even speak.

“A criminal like me?” she prompted, smiling, a sinister shadow flecking the green glint in her eyes “I murdered, you know?”  
   
“What do you propose?” Yamamoto asked, edging forward, taking this conversation to its natural conclusion before she could achieve what she wanted to. _Swaying the crowd, hah_. He huffed. _Scaring them into making the choice you want them to make. You’ve lost your touch, Ikari_.  

  
“You _know_ what I propose” she spat, irked and as he suspected, fully aware of his intention. _And I…fully aware of hers_. “I propose a challenge to your best. If I am defeated, I shall accept my incarceration without any protest. If I, in turn, defeat whoever you choose, you shall heed my demand and pay respect to my claim.”

A pause.

The arena chattered and buzzed with this unconventional approach, becoming more and more aware of the fact that this was drifting further and further away from a trial. Yamamoto silenced the crowd with a simple statement, all the while glaring straight at the lone figure in the middle of the arena.  
  
“As the Taicho of the 1st Division, and in my capacity as the Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13, I speak both on behalf of myself and my fukutaicho, Sasakibe Chojirou when I declare our agreement with this proposal. I shall ask the other Divisions to inform me of their decisions now. We shall have a vote.”

He turned to his right, where the lone figure of Soi-Fon stood with her back to him, Suzumebachi clasped tightly in its sheath behind her. She didn’t even wait for him to ask.  
“The 2nd Division accepts.”

  
Ohtoribashi turned back at him, blonde hair rippling down his shoulders, eyes ambiguous “So does the 3rd.”

  
Isane-fukutaicho turned as well, having gone three-shades paler “T-the 4th Division isn’t in agreement, Captain-Commander” she bowed low, trembling. Unohana’s figure stood still, aloof, her back to the committee like a stone statue.

  
“The 5th Division accepts” Hirako’s nasal voice rang out, as irritation flared inside Yamamoto’s very being. He hated how uncomfortable Hirako Shinji made him.

  
All eyes now were on the white haori with the 6th Division’s insignia printed on its back. It silently billowed in the wind for one long second. Two.  
“The 6th Division accepts.” Byakuya Kuchiki said, going almost deadly quiet. His back remained turned to the committee.  
  
“The 7th Division accepts.” Komamura almost but growled with impatience, fury flashing in the eyes of the humanoid wolf as he waited desperately to make the convict take back her insults.

“Ah, well.” Yamamoto shifted his gaze to his old protégé, Kyouraku Shunsui. The scruffy man with the flowered, garish kimono scratched his beard mock-thoughtfully, even as his fukutaicho hit him really hard on his back with her clipboard “I guess the 8th Division has to accept, too.”  
  
“As does the 9th.” Muguruma spoke, scratching his ear, eyes on the arena unwavering.

“The 10th Division accepts.” Hitsugaya stated, cool and cutting.

“Hell yeah. We accept.” Kenpachi grinned monstrously, eagerly pointing his katana at the lone figure.

“The 12th Division doesn’t accept, Captain-Commander.” Kurotsuchi-fukutaicho said, turning to him with a curt bow.

“The 13th Division” Ukitake, Yamamoto’s other protégé, sighed, weary “accepts.”


	13. The Trial Continues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jotei no Seigi: Justice of the Empress.

Steel whistled through the air as Wabisuke made a neat arc over his head and landed, firmly plunged into the ground right behind him. The silence roared in his ears, the silence of the whole arena teetering between breaths, between a win and a loss. Now down on his hands and knees, barely able to move his head to look away from the ground lest the sharp blade thrust in front of his face gave him a good carving, Kira felt like he  _had_  to appreciate the irony of the situation he was in, fight or no fight.   
  
“Not your best.” The voice came, as sharp as a knife.

He turned his head, with nowhere else to look but right, left and center. Pain fogged his vision, sharp bursts of it ran up and down his back from when he had braced for the impact of the attack to cover Hinamori’s retreat. To his far right Ayasegawa-san’s figure was sprawled out on the ground, leg bent at an unnatural angle, the flesh gouged out from his lower stomach debatably the most strikingly horrendous one among the multiple bruises and injuries that had been inflicted on his now-immobile body. Slightly off to the center, hacking up her lungs was Hinamori, vainly trying to lift herself off the ground, scrambling up and falling on her front every time she did. Blood ran freely from her mouth as she spat oodles of it on the ground, looking up through the strands of matted hair with murderous eyes, focusing her entire battered being and its intensity on the one figure. Kira didn’t even have to turn his head to the right to understand the immense duress Hisagi-san was in, as the intermittent thrashing and the gasped, garbled speech that came in snatches from his far left all but spelled out alarmingly late stages of acute asphyxiation, among other things.   
  
It hadn’t been too fast. They had seen it all, Team 1. The first tag team put together to “challenge” the convict and lay her down in the dust. The first ones inside the bullpen, the first ones chosen to stand up to protect. One high-ranking, seated officer. 3 Lieutenants.   
_Protect what?_  Kira had thought thought and thought ever since Rangiku came back from the Winter War and shut herself up in the 10th Division’s barracks for a fortnight.    
Ever since Ichimaru’s defection, Kira thought about things. Death. Cracks in fine ceramic pots. Scritch-scritch the quill on the paper, dip it in the inkpot, repeat. Mangled bodies. Missing reports. Daily meetings. Drilling the new recruits. Suicide. Kido target ranges.   
  
He remembered the Captain-Commander’s address, after the vote. He remembered Ohtoribashi-taicho waving him away with careless benediction though a certain grit lined his closed mouth. They stepped in, fought as they wished. Ayasegawa-san was twitchy, he remembered noting. Kira’s head hurt to observe, everything was out of focus except for the sharp edge of the katana still pointed at him inches from his face.   
  
How long had it been there, pointing at him? Weeks? Years? Ever since the Winter War?   
  
His vision was blacking out, the silence of the arena giving way to a deeper, more disaffected silence and somehow his insides cried out to him, a compulsion to remember. To run through the defeat- every moment of it. A compulsion to remember. To notice something. Something he’d noticed and forgotten in the blink of an eye, something calling out to him now as black waters closed above him.   
  
_Good boy_ , she’d told Hisagi-san, smiling as she met every strike of the twin-kusarigama flawlessly with her katana.  _Hide and run. Hide under this volatile illusion you’ve created of yourself, and run whenever the days get worse. Whenever Kazeshini gets worse._  
She’d said things, out of his earshot, to both Hinamori and Ayasegawa-san as well while confronting them, at times juggling between both as they pressed her hard from all sides looking for a way past her iron defense. He didn’t know what, but he did know it made Hinamori go on a rampage, ending in carving out a lump of flesh from her left forearm upon fleetingly distracting her with one of the largest blast radii that Tobiume had, purely out of an uncontrolled rage. What he also knew, was that it had to take something of great caliber to freeze as seasoned a warrior as Ayasegawa-san in his steps, even minutely, before a particularly nasty blast of Shakkaho threw his barely put-together body right outside the ring of conflict. Kira oddly felt a chill in the air before limping towards her with Wabisuke ready to deliver the final blow to activate its effects, quite sure he had been able to take advantage of the cover Ayasegawa-san and Hinamori had created to deposit shallow cuts on her person over and over.   
  
Now he remembered the tiny detail, the one that had been crying out to him under the crushing weight of the pain and the stress, the humiliation and the fear: a small, wry smile.   
  
She’d talked to all of the others. At him, she’d only smiled before turning towards the final blow.  
  
It hadn’t been too fast. Perfect murders, Kira thought, as the tidal wave of blackness and sleep washed over him and his focus blurred out, aren’t rushed. Like artists, butchers take their time. Like artists, butchers have all the time in the world.

* * *

* * *

_Time_ , he licked his lips nervously, a bead of sweat running down his spine under his shihakusho, _is something I don’t have in damn abundance._

  
Ikkaku’s eyes strained against the billowing clouds of dust that the impact of the vicious attack had thrown up, as the feisty woman had been thrown like a rag doll to the hard unyielding ground of the arena, having been blindsided by Ise-fukutaicho’s brilliant trap of self-launching, carefully timed, double Soren Sokatsuis. “3 rd seat Madarame!” Ise-fukutaicho snapped him back to the present, feet firmly planted on the ground, hand upraised to shield her eyes from the dust. “Yeah yeah” he acknowledged, feeling a shift somewhere. “Oi, Renji!” He called out to the red plume of hair that burned like a beacon in the dust “Fall back, I’ll go!”  
  
 Renji half-turned, panting. His shihakusho was in tatters, Zabimaru’s giant whip-like joints and sharp edges catching the sun and glinting minutely in the dust. If it hadn’t been for their single-minded focus for drawing first blood from the very minute they had stepped in the arena, they wouldn’t have been able to distract her sufficiently to set up the trap. Sode no Shirayuki was frighteningly effective, he had to admit, and you could tell Rukia Kuchiki had been training her ass off what with the ever-increasing core attack radius of that particularly malicious Tsukishiro step she had. But the woman was…man she was something else. Ikkaku smiled despite the wound to his chest. He had seen how she had almost but wiped the floor with Yumichika and the others. Here too, she escaped Tsukishiro fluidly, but got caught between the freezing flash of Sode no Shirayuki’s Second Dance and Zabimaru’s Hikotsu Taiho. Houzukimaru had done some good work as well. _Would’ve sliced her left to fucking ribbons if she didn’t have to go ahead and be so fast_. He tasted blood in his mouth though. _Nasty li’l-_  
Ahead to his left, Rukia Kuchiki stood, zanpakutou at the ready, pointing at the now-clearing cloud of dust. “Ikkaku-san, you stay there! I’m going ahead to inspect, be back in a bit!” Renji called out, reverting Zabimaru back to the katana.  
_Fair enough_ , he thought, stopping in his tracks. _Let the kouhai do some of the grunt work. She isn’t supposed to be in any state to move anytime soon, anyway._  
  
It wasn’t until Renji’s figure disappeared in the cloud of dust that seemed to gradually gain sentience and spiral around them bit by bit till it was a full-fledged Khamsin that tore apart their shihakushos wherever it touched them that the strangled voice at the back of his head grew louder and louder till he knew they had missed a very crucial step of battle strategy while moving in for the kill: they had underestimated a wounded enemy.  
  
“Jotei no Seigi.” he heard her through the haze and the roar of the wind. It was difficult to make out… _were those two swords? Planted into the ground? When did she_ -  
  
With an ear-splitting rumble, the ground in the eye of the storm cracked and yawned, pitching violently as larger and smaller cracks snaked their way to the three fallen to the ground. With a sharp cry, Rukia Kuchiki threw her hand in front of her. “Sekishou!”  
The blue shield flickered to life, weakly, in front of them. The cracks strained against the area cordoned-off, it wouldn’t hold for long.  
“Renji!” 3rd seat Madarame shouted from this side of the shield, staring straight ahead at the screen of the dust storm ahead, “You two fall to the ground! Hold on to whatever the fuck you can!” he cried, struggling desperately against the overwhelming force of the wind to take a step towards the pale blue flickering barrier. “Kuchiki, hold the barrier! You let this fall and we’re all minced meat!”  
“Hai, Madarame-san!” Rukia Kuchiki shouted back, focusing her entire strength on channeling the barrier. Digging Houzukimaru into the ground, leaning his weight on it as much as he could, 3rd seat Madarame struggled with all his might to step forth, breach the barrier, reach the haze of the dust storm on the other side. “3rd seat Madarame, don’t do it!” She cried out “Remain on this side of the barrier!” The cracks pushed violently against the nearly-dead shield and Rukia Kuchiki recoiled, trying to contain the weight of the reiatsu base from collapsing. Were Nanao’s eyes deceiving her or did… _did the ground swell just now?_  
  
She looked at Rukia Kuchiki slowly, to find her violet eyes fixed with utter panic, flitting between the crumbling barrier and the haze on the other side. _She’s afraid_ , Nanao realized with a start, not understanding why this was an alien observation to her. _Kuchiki is- my god, Abarai-fukutaicho is in there_. The first few cracks snaked their way inside the barrier like vines creeping towards destruction. “Aaaah!” Rukia Kuchiki shouted, giving it all she had to keep the barrier from dispelling altogether. 3 rd seat Madarame still strained against the wind, the ground wrapped around his feet as the cracks yawned and became fractures. Somewhere in Nanao’s mind, beyond the fear and the panic, she was aware that the ground temperature was rising alarmingly. A dull yellow light shone on their grimy, sweaty faces, making its way out through the cracks. The one that had almost reached Nanao’s left hand started to glow with a disturbing brightness.  
  
_Reiatsu._ Nanao’s heart nearly stopped as the massive weight of the realization settled on her. _The ground. The earth. One huge entire bomb._  
_Oh, clever._  
_Clever._  
_I need to figure out how._  
  
3, 2, 1.  
  
_Touchdown.  
_

 

* * *

* * *

_  
  
_ “This…this is…” Isane licked her lips nervously. “It’s…”  
  
“Speak plainly, Isane.” Her taicho’s back rose up in front of her like a wall of marble, untouched, unaffected. Otherworldly.  
  
“B-but Taicho” she stuttered, refusing to believe the scene her eyes couldn’t tear themselves off from “Kom-Komamura taicho’s Bankai it’s…impenetrable. It’s invincible.”  
  
Unohana’s robes billowed in the silent wind, pregnant with a shock that was soon beginning to turn to horror all around the arena.  
  
A single hand restrained Kokujo Tengen Myou’o’s colossal sword, freezing it in its path of motion before it sliced her clean in half from the top to the toes. The Dharma King was thrashing against the grip, trying to bear down with its immense titan strength again and again. Again and again, it shuddered to a miserable halt as the palm pressed against it determinedly. She stood tall, blood dripping from a gash that stretched yawning across her chest, streaming in rivulets down her stomach. Her shihakusho had been ripped to bits, and now, without the black obscuring it, the faint sunlight slipped on the ripe chestnut of her sweaty neck, shoulders, the slight swell of her chest where it was bound with strips of cloth, the rock-hard stomach that, much like her shoulders and arms, swarmed with vein-like, scabbed over scars- a lifetime of war, a map of misery etched right on living tissue. Sweat pooled at the base of her throat, streamed down her back, dotted her forehead, mingled with the blood and fell to the ground like a witches’ concoction. Sculpted muscles rippled right under her skin, the black river that her hair was danced moodily in the upwind. She had planted her legs apart to brace for the impact, and now her left hand gripped her katana while the right hand rose up to meet the blade of the rampaging giant, holding it in place like a butterfly pinned to a book.  
  
Komamura had, before setting foot in the arena, decided that he would fight till the very bloody end. It didn't matter what she threw at him- he'd bring her and her upstart, irreverent ways to justice. He'd relished thinking how she'd cower in front of the ghastly titanic apparition, entirely armored, wielding a sword about 10 cubits long and 4 across.  
  
However, reality was far from perfect.  
  
He was frozen in his position, remotely controlling the huge armored titan. Tengen trembled in his grip as he grimaced, baring his canines, eyes turning slit-pupilled, black against the burning yellow, trying to summon the strength to bring the sword down. It felt like he was hitting concrete with a stick. He simply couldn’t. Move. A step more. _Just one step._ He pleaded, who with he didn't know. _I beg of you. Let me take one. More. Step.  
  
_ Nothing.   
Beneath him, the unyielding invisible wall that jammed Tengen's clean swipe. Above him, a mercilessly blue sky. Behind him, an audience for his utter humiliation. In front of him, his world being smashed to pieces by a single, immobile girl who, square-jawed and bleeding profusely, held back a titan.  
Komamura looked up at her, in fury, frustration, barely-controlled disturbia.  
  
He saw himself, mirrored in those green swampy orbs. He saw himself distorted, a huge anthropomorphic wolf, grunting under the immense strain he was carrying, driven into a corner by fear, fracture and failure. Pain shot up his chest, he couldn’t maintain this form for too long.  
He could feel the arena drawing breath behind him. _So this is what it feels like to be under scrutiny.  
_  
_Forever weak. This is beyond pitiful. This is a disgrace-to those who I lead, to those who I follow, to those who trust me to keep them safe._  
_Tōsen. This is a disgrace to you, your death. I am unfit of being the man you thought I was._  
  
“I-“ Komamura rasped out, slowly lowering his sword-arm, and Tengen with it as the gigantic figure of the armored Dharma King vanished into thin air “I forfeit.” 

 


End file.
